Xwoman no more
by LanceIsHot
Summary: Previously Leaving Home, but somebody had that title already, so, what happens when Kitty leaves the X-men for the Brotherhood? R&R!
1. Leaving Home

**Yeah, I know I'm stalling on the Jamie story, but I'm at a standstill on it, and this one just wanted to come out, sorry it's short, but my dad wants me to go to bed, the next chapter will be longer, I swear. . In my perfect world here, all the X-men are at the institute, including Rahne, Tabitha, and Jubilee, and Wanda isn't with the Brotherhood, it's just the four boys. Read and Review please!**

Kitty was always happy with her life at the institute. There was plenty of food to eat, people to see, and things to do. She was friends with all the X-men, and almost all the new recruits. There was always someone to talk to, to help with her homework, or to just hang out. There was only one thing missing.

Her boyfriend, Lance.

It wasn't that she really wanted to join the Brotherhood, but every time she had to fight them, she couldn't help but wonder how much better it would be if she was living with him. Usually, though, she would take a look around her, and decide that she didn't really want to leave.

This time was different, however, this time the X-men had stepped to far out of line, even for her easy-going attitude.

It had started that morning, when she was reading a story underneath her favorite tree at the mansion. She was content, with a book, an iced tea, and a comfortable spot, away from the crowds of the institute.

Bamf

"What Kurt?" Kitty asked in an annoyed voice. Everyone knew she hated being bothered when she wanted alone time- why did they always seem to look for her?

"Hey Keety," Kurt said, his German accent coming out. "I was just wondering if you could do me a favor."

"Like what?" Kitty said, not even bothering to look up from her book. She always felt like Rogue when she ignored people, but everyone knew that she and Rogue were nothing alike, so it didn't bother her that much.

"Could you stand out a minute?" Kurt asked, grinning from pointy-ear to pointy-ear, his fangs showing.

Kitty sighed, marked the place in her book, and stood up.

"You happy now?" She asked.

"Almost," Kurt said, and leaned forward and kissed her on the lips.

Kitty paused for a second, trying to figure out what was happening. When she did, she pushed him away, and he stumbled backwards, knocking over her iced tea.

"Kurt! What the heck are you doing?" She exclaimed, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

"I think it's called a kiss, Keety," he grinned, and quickly bamfed out.

Kitty, picked up her book, and iced tea, and stormed inside. She was furious. Kurt knew that she was happy with Lance, why did he always do things like this? It just made her mad.

As she walked past the library, she heard snickering and whispering coming from around the corner. She quietly phased through the door, making sure she wasn't seen by the people inside.

It was the new recruits, and by listening to their conversation, she realized they were talking about her.

"Yeah, Kurt wanted me to freeze her, so she couldn't push him away, but the idiot forgot she could phase!" Bobby said, laughing with the other recruits and lounging on one of the couches, eating assorted snacks that were forbidden in the library.

Jubilee was standing over him, leaning on the couch. "Man, did you see her face? I thought she was going to explode!" She said, stealing a chip from Bobby.

"I liked how she just shoved him out of the way," Sam said. "Guess that will be the last time we hear, 'chicks dig the fuzzy dude.' Remind me to thank Kitty later."

"Yeah," Ray agreed, eating an Oreo on one of the other couches. "That was getting kind of annoying."

"Don't you guys care at all that Kurt's still trying to get Kitty to date him, when she's obviously not interested?" Amara asked.

"Not really," Bobby said. "Every time Kurt goes after her, is one more chance that she dumps the rock head. And you know what Scott says, better him than Lance."

"Yeah, that would be nice," Jubilee said. "I can't stand her talking on the phone every single night to that loser. I'm seriously thinking of asking the Prof if I can switch rooms so I'm not right next to her."

"When do you think she'll dump that loser?" Sam asked, throwing M&M's into the air, and catching them in his mouth.

"Soon, if Scott and Jean have anything to say about it," Jubilee said. "Scott's still hanging up whenever he hears Lance calls, so Kitty's not getting half his calls."

"Hey," Ray asked, "is he really going into her email and deleting all his messages? And that they get Jamie to read her diary so they can see what's going on."

"I think so, at least, that's what I heard. Seems pretty stupid to get the squirt to read Kitty's diary, why don't they do that themselves." Bobby told him.

"And get their hands dirty? No way," Sam snickered. "And besides, Jamie was practically begging to, you know little brothers, they always want to know what's going on in the lives of their older siblings. Believe me, with all the brothers and sisters I have, I know."

"Doesn't that seem almost...I don't know, wrong? Like something Lance would do?" Amara asked.

"Yeah, but he is the leader, and he's only doing what he thinks is right, or whatever's best for the team and all that crap." Bobby said.

"Hey, we better get out of here before someone catches us eating in the library," Jubilee said, and they all grabbed their snacks and left, leaving a pretty big mess of crumbs and scattered M&M's.

Kitty quickly moved out of the area that the recruits were coming out of, and sat down on one of the couches. She felt so violated. There were people not telling her about her calls, reading her diary, and even going so far as to hacking in to her computer and reading her email. It just wasn't right.

Of course, now that she was incredibly angry, Scott came in.

"Kitty, what's with the crumbs, you know we're not allowed to eat in here," he said.

She groaned, and without a word, phased through the walls into her room. She walked to her bed, flopped down on it, and screamed into her pillow.

Something had to change; it wasn't fair to her or Lance that her friends were splitting them up. She had two choices: break up with Lance, or leave the X-men, neither of which she wanted to do.

She looked out her window, where she could see all the new recruits, having escaped the wrath of Scott in the library playing outside. Scott, Jean, Rogue and Evan were playing in the pool, and Kurt was coming out to join them.

They looked so happy, so content. Did she really want to leave here?

She thought about the Brotherhood's house, it was falling apart, with graffiti everywhere, and no food. Not the place she really wanted to live. But Lance's friends never tried to break them up, they teased them, sure, but they never went to drastic measures to break them up.

She thought about it for a few hours, going so far as to locking Rogue out so she could be alone to think. There were pro's and con's to both sides. She didn't really want to leave the X-men, but she didn't think she could handle staying with them any longer.

At the Brotherhood house, she had her boyfriend, people who she could accept as friends, and a new way of life. Sure her parents wouldn't be happy with her living with the boy who tried to kill them, but no one else would be real happy either. She just hoped Lance and the boys would let her stay. They hadn't had a girl with them since Wanda and Tabitha left, and she wasn't sure if they would want another girl with them, but she would have to try.

She called Lance, and quickly told him what she was planning. He was excited, but a little nervous about what the boys would say.

"I don't know Kitty, I think it's great that you want to live with us, but I don't know about the guys," he said.

"So ask them," Kitty said, trying to speak quietly, so that the others wouldn't hear her.

"Okay," Lance said, and she could hear over the phone, "hey guys! What do you think about Kitty living with us for awhile?"

"Kitty Pryde?" She heard Todd asked, "The X-geek? Why would she want to live with us?"

"Does it matter? We haven't had a girl here in ages," Pietro said, "tell her I'll pick her up in a minute."

"The guys say its okay," Lance said, and Kitty could tell he was grinning. "Pietro will come by to pick up your stuff in...oh, wait, he's already gone. See ya in a bit then."

"Okay," Kitty said, and hung up. She quickly packed her most important stuff, figuring she could come back for whatever she left later. She wrote a short note, and headed down the stairs.

Half an hour later, Rogue walked into the room she shared with Kitty, but all she found was a note.

'_Goodbye,' _was all it said.

**Sorry if anyone's OOC, but this is AU, which means I can do what I want, so hah! Sorry, that had to come out. **


	2. Meeting the Brotherhood again

_Well, here's chapter two. Hope you guys like it, R&R please!_

_Thanks to: Mystique in Darkness, butterfly-grl4, guess who, alicat333, anc7, NightCrawler28, and anwen for reviewing. _

_Anwen-thanks for your offer, but I don't usually read stories with OC's so I'd feel kind of weird putting one in my story, if I do change my mind, though, I'll ask you. _

Kitty had never been on one of Pietro's 'rides,' so she wasn't really expecting the rush she got when he picked her up, and arrived at the Brotherhood house a second later.

By the time she had stopped being dizzy, Pietro had mad two trips to get all her stuff.

"Wow, Pietro, that was like, totally cool!" Kitty exclaimed when he got back.

"I know," he replied, "but man, what do you have in here, bricks?" He asked, referring to the three bulging bags that he had carried over.

"Shoes, clothes, make-up, you know, the necessities," Kitty replied, easily picking up one of the suitcases. Being with Wolverine for workouts every morning had its benefits.

Wolverine...man, was she homesick already? No, she decided, she just happened to be thinking about him and his daily torture sessions. But never again, she could do what she wanted here.

Lance was waiting at the door for her.

"Hey Kitty," he said, grinning. "How was the ride over here?"

"Great," Kitty replied, and walked past Lance into the house.

"Okay," Lance said, "that's the living room, the kitchen, the bathroom, my room, Todd's room, stay out of there, Pietro's room, stay out of there too, and Blob's room, take my advice, don't go in there, and well, I think that's all."

"Where do I sleep?" Kitty asked him.

Pietro answered, "In Lance's bedroom," causing both Kitty and Lance to blush.

"You can sleep in Mystique's room," Lance said. "She and Magneto both ditched us, so it shouldn't be a problem."

"Are you sure?" Kitty asked. "Tabitha said Mystique was really upset when she found out someone had been in her room, and I, like, don't want her to get mad at me."

"Its fine, Kitty," Lance assured her.

Kitty nodded, and brought her stuff into her new room. She really liked it. It wasn't as good as her room in the mansion, but, she figured, nothing here really would be as great as the mansion.

The room was exactly the same as it was before Tabitha blew it up; Mystique must have bought exactly the same things once she moved back in. The only thing Kitty didn't see that Tabitha described was the chandelier; in its place was an ordinary light. Mystique must not have had enough money to buy a new one.

Money...how did the Brotherhood pay all their bills? Were they going to have enough money for her? She still had some allowance from the institute, but that wouldn't last that long. She really didn't think this out.

She walked downstairs to the living room, where the boys where sitting on a couch that was falling apart, watching a TV that didn't really work.

She sat down next to Lance, and tried to get comfortable, but it was difficult. She was sandwiched between Lance and Fred, because there was no where else to sit, but she couldn't really move or breathe.

"So what made you leave the X-geeks?" Pietro asked.

Kitty hesitated. These were supposed to be her enemies, right? How could she tell everything to them, wouldn't that be betraying her teammates?

'No,' Kitty thought, 'they're not my teammates anymore. The Brotherhood aren't my enemies now, they're my team.'

"I'm sick of them trying to break up my relationship with Lance, that's not what I want in teammates. They were, like, going through my diary and email to see what I've done with Lance, and they keep telling me he's the enemy and I totally don't believe that. So now, I'm against them instead of you," she said.

The Brotherhood was silent. They were criminals, but they would never go through each others personal stuff. That was wrong, even for them, they couldn't imagine touching each others mail or anything like that.

"Well," Todd said, "You're with us now, so you gotta learn the basic code of the Brotherhood."

"We have a code?" Fred asked.

"Yeah," Todd said, "everybody has a code. You know, rules to follow, chores to do, stuff like that."

"Okay, I get it," Pietro said, "like, number one, no going into other peoples rooms unless you're invited. Rule two, keep the house clean as much as possible, if you don't, we think the social workers going to come back. And we don't want to be split up."

Kitty looked around the living room. There were pizza boxes on the floor, graffiti on the walls, and cobwebs hanging from the ceiling. It didn't look like the Brotherhood was following their second rule to her.

"Third rule," Todd continued, "we gotta find a chore that you can do."

"I can cook," Kitty said, to which all the members of the Brotherhood laughed.

"Very funny, Kitty," Lance said, "but can you do something else?"

"I'm serious guys," Kitty said, "after the, 'muffin incident' as Kurt so fondly calls it, I had two choices, either drop home economics and never cook again, or get private lessons from Ororo once a week. I'm now, like, the second best cook in the house, and I'm getting better with practice."

"Really?" Pietro asked. "Last time you cooked for us, we missed a week of school."

"Nope, I'm a good cook now, I'll start dinner up in a few minutes," Kitty said. "Oh, speaking of school, you guys can give me a ride, right?"

"Yeah," Lance said, "when we scared Kelly into letting us back into school, I got my own parking space, so we always take my jeep. We can't get decent jobs without a high school diploma, so I added parking space to my demands when I told him to let us back into school."

"Yeah, and we need jobs, so far, only Pietro and Lance are working, no one will let Fred and me work," Todd said.

"Are you going to have enough money, when Tabitha was here, she like, said that you guys were totally broke," Kitty said, hoping she wouldn't hurt Lance's feelings by bringing up the touchy matter of money. He didn't seem offended, but he didn't look at her when he responded.

"If you do your part in the house, Pietro and I can work more, and we should manage. You're still too young to work, so you can help Todd and Fred in the house," Lance said.

"Okay," Kitty said, "then I'm going to start dinner."

"What are you going to make?" Fred asked.

"Depends on what you guys have," Kitty said as she walked into the kitchen.

"Okay, Pietro and I have work for a few hours, but we'll be back in time for dinner," Lance said.

The cupboards were slightly banged up, but they weren't as bad as they were last time she was here. There was enough to make a good meal, and Kitty got started cooking. She was going to prove to the guys that she should stay with them.

A few hours later, Kitty had the table set, and dinner waiting for Lance and Pietro to get home from work. Fred was, of course, the first one in the dining room, and was about to start eating when Todd walked in.

"What is this stuff, yo?" he asked Kitty.

"It's vegetarian lasagna," Kitty said. "And don't start eating until Lance and Pietro come home."

"But we always eat before them," Fred whined.

"Yeah, and you can't tell me you X-geeks all ate dinner at the same time," Todd said.

"There's a difference, there was like, over twenty people there, and there's only five here. We can wait," Kitty told them.

A few minutes later, Lance and Pietro walked in. Lance worked at a construction company, and smelled like sun, Pietro worked at Burger Bomb, and smelled like burgers, not exactly the best smelling combination in the world.

"Wow, Kitty," Lance said, "this smells great." He and Pietro sat down, and started to eat, when Pietro got a funny look on his face.

"What is this stuff?" He asked.

"Its vegetarian lasagna," Fred told him.

"Vegetarian? As in no meat?" Pietro asked Kitty.

"Yeah," She said, "I don't eat meat."

"You mean every time you cook, we don't get meat?" Todd asked.

"Yep," Kitty said.

"This is going to take some serious getting used to," Pietro said.

"Aw, guys what are you talking about?" asked Lance, his mouth full. "This stuff is good."

"Lance, don't talk with your mouth full," Kitty told him, causing the others to snicker.

"Yeah, you don't want your precious Kitty to get upset, now do you," Pietro said, laughing out loud.

"Very funny," Lance said, "lets just finish dinner, I need to take a shower."

"Oh, that reminds me," Pietro said. He looked at Todd, "it's the first Sunday of the month, you have to take a shower tonight," he told him.

"Aw man," Todd whined, "this stinks yo."

"You, like only take one shower a month?" Kitty asked.

"Yeah," Todd replied, "the first Sunday of every month."

"That's so gross!" she exclaimed. "Any chance of you changing that to once a week instead?"

"I doubt it, yo," Todd said, "don't like taking showers that much, I won't do it more than I have to."

Kitty nodded, trying her best to keep her face impassive, and not let the boys see how disgusted she was. 'I'm in their house, they took me in, and I shouldn't say anything.'

After awhile, they had all finished dinner, and Kitty was doing the dishes. After his shower, Lance came down to see her. He gave her a quick peck on the check and leaned against the sink she was drying dishes over.

"Hey, Kitty," Lance said, "I just wanted you to know, I'm glad you're here. This is going to be cool. You know, no one telling us that we can't see each other, or slamming the door in my face when I come to pick you up for a date..."

"Who did that?" Kitty asked.

"Bobby did, after I left you guys, I went to pick you up, and he opened the door and said something like, 'sorry, we stopped letting scum like you in' and slammed the door in my face," Lance told her.

Kitty sighed, "And I got mad at you because you never showed up. Bobby even comforted me, saying that I shouldn't care that you stood me up, and that you were a jerk anyways." Kitty felt like crying, these were her friends, and Bobby had so easily lied to her face. What other things had they done?

"But it doesn't matter now," Lance said, wrapping his arms around her, sensing that she was going to cry if he said anything more. "We don't have to think about that anymore, okay? From now on, it's just you, me, Fred, Pietro and Todd, and they don't do things like that."

Kitty nodded, thanked Lance and said goodnight, and went to her new room. After changing clothes and brushing her teeth and hair, she got into her bed. It wasn't as comfy as her old one, but it would do.

"Oh," she cried, and sprang up from her bed. She quickly went to the bags she had brought, and frantically searched through them. She pulled out her stuffed dragon. "Ah, Lockheed, how could I forget about you?" she asked the toy.

She climbed into bed. "Goodnight Rogue..." she started, but stopped mid-sentence. She wasn't sharing a room with Rogue anymore, but it was such a habit of saying goodnight to her every night, Kitty said it.

'Great,' she thought to herself, 'now I'm going to be homesick, and not be able to sleep.' But thinking back to what she had heard all day, she decided that it wasn't being away from home that made her sick, it was the fact that she had listened to them, had believed every word that they said for so long that made her ill.

'I'm really home now,' she decided.

Back at the Mansion

Rogue didn't know what to do when she first read Kitty's goodbye note, she wanted to respect her decision, but she also didn't think Kitty could really run away, or if she was just hiding somewhere. She didn't want to get the whole mansion searching for her, only to find out that she was just out on a date or something.

But a date didn't usually require Kitty needing to take all her clothes and makeup. And finding even under her bed cleaned out completely, Rogue decided to tell the Professor what was going on.

The Professor was worried, but after a quick scan to see where she was, he calmed down a bit.

"It's okay," he told the X-men and new recruits who had gathered in the study to see what was going on, "Kitty's with the Brotherhood."

"And that's okay?" Scott asked. "Alvers kidnapped her; I didn't think he would stoop that low."

Jean was trying to read Kitty's mind. "She wasn't kidnapped, Scott," she said. "She asked Lance if she could stay over there."

"But why?" Kurt asked. "I meant it as a joke when I kissed her this morning, I didn't want her to run away." Logan gave Kurt a funny look when he said that he kissed Kitty, but Kurt ignored him.

"She was mad about that," Jean said, "but she's mad at us all really. Wow," she said, as she continued to read Kitty's mind, "She cusses worse than Logan. You should here what she's saying."

"What is she saying?" Jubilee asked.

Jean's face fell, "that... she can't believe what lousy friends we were, and that...that she won't ever talk to any of us again." Jean was starting to regret agreeing with Scott to go through her personal things.

"That's going to be hard," Kurt said, trying to make the best of the situation, "we're partners in science class, she has to talk to me. Maybe I can talk her into coming back."

"Pietro's in your class too," Jean said, "and starting tomorrow, she's switching partners."

"Why is she doing this?" Scott asked.

"Because, somebody told her we were reading her diary and her email," Jean said, glaring at the new recruits.

"You were reading her email?" Logan asked, shocked.

"We were trying to keep her safe from Lance," Scott said, sheepishly.

"If you were doing that to me, I would have left to," Logan said, and walked out of the room.

Scott ignored him "We have to go get her," he said.

"No, we don't Scott," the Professor said. "Kitty has every right to live where she wants. If she doesn't think her privacy is being respected, then she can live with the Brotherhood until she feels it's time to come back home."

"What about her parents, who think she's safe with us. She's living with the guy who tried to kill them. Who knows what they could be doing to her right now!" Scott protested. "An unarmed, little girl asleep in her bed, miles away from the only people who can save her..."

"Uh, Shades?" Tabitha interrupted his rant, "I lived there for a while too, remember? And the guys didn't do anything bad to me."

"They kicked you out," Bobby pointed out.

"No, Mystique did," Tabitha said. "And, here's a little tip, Scott," she said as she walked out, "you go in there, trying to save her and all, and she's going to hate you even more."

"She's right," Kurt said, "we'll just have to try to get her to come back tomorrow at school."

"Fine," Scott said, "but if Alvers does anything to her, I'm bringing her back, even if I have to drag her back screaming," he stormed out of the room.

"Well boys and girls," Rogue said sarcastically, "tomorrow's going to be interesting, isn't it?"

The other's nodded, not wanting to say anything. They were upset that Kitty had left, and that it was because of them that she did.

_Hmm...something about this story seems familiar. Does anyone know if this story's already been done? Well, with over 8,860 stories, it's hard to find a new storyline, but still... Anyways, it's poll time. In order to get the story straight from the beginning, I need your guys opinion on these matters:_

_1. Should Kitty stay with the Brotherhood?_

_2. Should Magneto and Mystique come back?_

_Yeah, that's all, but I'm asking for your opinions because I don't know which way to go. Thanks, _

_LanceIsHot _


	3. The Fight

_Hey everyone, sorry this has taken so long to get out, troubles with boyfriends, you know how that goes, but I hope this chapter is good. And since nobody wanted Kitty to go back to the X-men, which surprised me, I kind of made the X-men kind of OOC, so don't get mad at me, it's AU, so I can do what I want. Thanks to all those who reviewed and gave me good ideas!_

Kitty was nervous about going to school with the Brotherhood. It was bad enough going when everyone found out they were mutants, and her friends abandoned her, but now she was going to be going with the only four people hated more then the X-men. What would her old friends think?

She knew what the X-men thought. She could feel Jean reading her mind, Kitty had learned to tell when someone was in her mind, and she knew the X-men were disappointed in her.

The jeep was crowded; there was hardly any room for them to move. Kitty tried to get comfortable in the seat between Pietro and Todd, but it was difficult.

"Can't you just run to school?" Kitty asked Pietro.

"He's too lazy," Lance called from the driver's seat.

"No I'm not," Pietro snapped at him. "I can't run to school because it looks like I just appeared out of nowhere. It's about as weird as when Kurt pops in. And besides," he said, leaning back in his seat, "I like riding in the car, but it is kind of slow."

Kitty frowned at the mention of Kurt's name, but she let it slide. She didn't want to think about the X-men yet. She wasn't sure what she'd say if they confronted her.

Lance got to the parking lot at the school, and parked in his special spot. Kitty did her best to ignore the questioning looks she was getting, but it was hard to forget that half the people who were glaring at her used to be her friends.

"Your friends still are being jerks?" Lance asked her, noticing the looks she was getting.

"Yes," Kitty responded, not looking at him, "and I guess showing up with you guys, like, doesn't boost up their opinions of me."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Lance asked.

"They probably think I'm going to act like you guys, you know, like, knocking down school's, crashing lockers, sliming people, you know, you don't have the best reputations in the school."

"Yeah, I guess," Lance said, gave her a quick kiss, and started to walk off.

"Kitty!" She heard Kurt, as he and the rest of the X-men and new recruits walked toward her.

"Didn't you guys graduate?" Kitty asked Scott and Jean coldly, before turning away.

"Kitty, stop," Jean said, grabbing onto her shoulder. Kitty glared at her, and phased through her hand, even though she could get expelled if she was caught.

"We came back to see why you left," Jean said, grabbing Kitty's shoulder again, turning her around to face them.

"Well, gosh Jean, why don't you guys read my diary, or my email, or even read my mind?" Kitty asked. "By the way, when you try to read peoples minds when you're upset, the person who's mind you're in can feel it." She turned around again.

"Look, Kitty, we're sorry about all the stuff we've done," Scott said, though he didn't sound sorry. "Now could you get your stuff and come home?"

"I have school to go to Scott," she said, "and I'm already planning on going home."

"You are?" Kurt asked excitedly.

"Yeah Kurt," Kitty said, "My _new _home, you know, the one where they respect people's privacy. The one where people don't try to kiss me when I already have a boyfriend. The one where I can depend on people to not invade my personal life."

"Kitty, you live with us, we are part of your personal life," Kurt said.

"Come on Kitty, you are coming home," Scott said, grabbing Kitty's arm and trying to push her towards his car.

Lance had walked away at first, thinking that Kitty could handle the others, but he turned around once he heard Scott.

"I don't have to do anything I don't want to Scott," Kitty said, trying to get his hand off her without phasing again.

"Kitty, you don't have a choice, you have to come home," Scott said, pulling her arm.

"That sounds an awful lot like a threat to me, Summers," he said, grabbing Scott's hand and yanking it off Kitty.

"No one asked you, Alvers," Scott snarled, trying to grab Kitty's hand. "Kitty belongs with us; her parents wouldn't want her living with a bunch of delinquents."

"Scott, stop calling them that!" Kitty shouted. "In case you've forgotten, both Rogue and Tabitha were part of the Brotherhood, look how they turned out."

Unfortunately for Kitty, Tabitha had gotten bored with the conversation, and was getting into a fight with a guy three times as big as she was.

"Yeah," Scott said sarcastically, "Tabitha turned out just fine."

"Hey, Scott, I'm okay, and I lived with them," Rogue said.

"You've been living with us for a long time," Scott argued, "all the bad habits you picked up from them went away after a while."

"Bad habits?" Lance asked. "Like what, reading people's private stuff? Funny, I think they all learned that from you. Admit it Summers; you're just mad that instead of somebody leaving us, they're leaving you." He grabbed Kitty's hand and stormed off.

"Thanks for covering me back there Lance," Kitty said, once they got out of earshot of the X-men.

"I couldn't let them insult you Kitty," Lance said, giving her a slight hug. "Now, if any of them bother you today, just come and get one of us. The thing about the Brotherhood is that we always help each other."

"Even if I'm an old enemy?" Kitty asked.

"Tabitha was too," Lance pointed out, "and we got along with her just fine. Well, except this one time, she was acting really weird; it was like she was going all out to show us we couldn't stop her or something. She stole my jeep, shaved Freddy's head, and walked in on Todd in the bathroom...twice. And then, one night, it all stopped, and none of us were ever able to figure out what she was up to." Lance looked thoughtful, trying to think about why Tabitha acted so odd.

"Um..." Kitty started, "maybe she had joined a sort of 'girl power' group, and she was trying to show that she was better than guys, and they were forced to suddenly stop?"

Lance looked at her for a second. "Yeah....I guess," he said.

"Okay, I've got to get to class," Kitty said, hurrying off to first period.

"See ya later than Kitty," Lance said, and walked to his class.

Classes went pretty smoothly, until third period, which was the only class that she had one of the X-men in. It wasn't that hard to switch lab partners to Pietro instead of Kurt, but she did feel kind of guilty about leaving Kurt without a partner.

After class, during lunch, Kitty had to go her locker to get a book she forgot. She was pretty much alone in the hallway; most of the people were in the cafeteria.

"Kitty," she heard behind her. She turned around, it was Kurt.

"Yes Kurt?" She asked, turning back around towards her locker.

"I just wanted to know why you can't come back," Kurt said, trying to turn her around to face him.

"Kurt..." she started, but stopped when she looked at him. He looked so sad to see his best friend leaving him. "I just need some time off, okay?"

Kurt looked disappointed. "Are you sure? I know Scott and Jean won't do anything bad anymore."

"But how would I know, Kurt?" She asked him. "How could I know if they weren't lying to me? I can't live in a place where I can't trust the people I live with, Kurt."

Kurt looked defeated, and walked off without saying anything else. Kitty felt bad for him, but she felt what she was doing was right, so she didn't call after him.

After school, Kitty was waiting for the Brotherhood to get out of detention, which they only had for 15 minutes that day. She had just put her books in her locker, when someone slammed her head on the door.

"Hey Kitty," a nasty voice said. It was Brett, who was pretty much the Duncan of that year. He was a football player, cruel, and hated mutants. He was there with two of his football buddies, all looking for a fight.

"What do you want Brett?" Kitty asked, trying to stop the tears that were starting to leak out from hitting her head on the locker.

"Well, we heard you joined the Brotherhood, and so we figured we'd come by to ask you if it's true," Brett said.

"What does it matter to you, Brett? What do you care what group I'm in, I'm just a mutie, remember?"

"It matters to me because the X-men don't cause any trouble. We know that all those guys in the Brotherhood should be expelled. Last year, they were. So we're hoping that if we give them enough encouragement, they'll leave Bayville," Brett said.

"Just because I switched teams doesn't mean I'm bad Brett," Kitty tried to explain, doing her best to keep her voice calm. She didn't need a fight.

"But how would we know? It just seems easier to make sure you know that you're not welcome here when you're with the Brotherhood."

Eric, one of Brett's football buddies, proceeded to grab Kitty's hair, and slam her into the locker again. Kitty started to scream, but Eric put his hand over her mouth.

"We don't want mutant scum like you at Bayville," Brett said, as Kitty started to cry, "especially ones who are in the Brotherhood."

By now, they had gathered a crowd, and Kitty could see some of the new recruit and Kurt in the faces of the audience. Some were cheering Brett and his friends on, some looked like they didn't care, and some looked worried. But Bobby watched for a minute, with what looked to Kitty like almost satisfaction on his face, but she couldn't really see, and steered Amara and Jubilee out of the crowd. Ray and Roberto left soon after.

Kurt hesitated when Bobby called him. He looked like he wanted to stop Brett, but he quickly walked off, not looking back at poor Kitty.

By now, Brett and his friends had beaten Kitty up pretty badly. She had a black eye, and a split lip, and the boys looked like they were just getting started.

Before they could though, she heard a voice telling them to stop. She was hoping it was a teacher who could punish them, but it turned out to be even better.

"Hey, what the hell do you think you're doing?" Lance asked angrily, punching Brett in the face.

Fred, Pietro and Todd had quickly stepped in, looking for a good fight more than helping Kitty. Lance was able to give Brett one last punch before he helped Kitty. He placed her on the floor, and kneeled next to her.

"Are you okay Kitty?" Lance asked.

"Is this how it feels?" Kitty asked him.

"What do you mean?"

"Is this what you go through every day? Getting beat up by people you don't even really know? Did all of you get betrayed by your friends? How do you put up with this every day?" Kitty had a thousand questions for Lance about what had just happened to her, and if it had happened to all of them as well, though she already thought she knew the answer.

Lance stared at her for a second, not quite sure how to respond. Finally, he sat down on the floor next to Kitty, and placed her on his lap, gently stroking her hair.

"Yeah, I guess we do put up with this every day. We don't know a lot of the people we have fights with, and we don't even start most of them. But at the end of the fight, we're the ones who get blamed for starting it. And Todd and Fred didn't really have any friends, but Pietro's and my friends pretty much ditched us. That's why we're so close, we don't have anybody else, and we're all going through the same crap," Lance said.

"You've all had to put up with this...every day?" Kitty asked, not really being able to understand how they could handle it.

"Yeah," Lance said. "That's why we always got so pissed with Jean and Scott and their way of looking down on us. We have to deal with thugs like this every day, and they give us lectures on how we should try to get along with them, not fight them.

Kitty was beginning to understand why the Brotherhood boys found it so hard to believe Xavier's ideas of humans and mutants living peacefully together. They were treated like scum before the world knew they were mutants, and things only got worse when their powers were revealed.

Fred, Pietro, and Todd had left Brett and his friends a bloody mess on the floor. They quietly walked with Lance and Kitty back to the car, not knowing how Kitty was going to react to the fight that just happened.

The ride back to the house was totally silent. The guys were afraid Kitty was going to leave them, and Kitty wasn't sure what to say. She felt sorry for the guys for having to have this kind of life, but she also wasn't sure she wanted to share it with them. On the other hand, she didn't think she would be able to go back to the X-men. After she watched them leave her to fight, walking out on her when she needed their help, she didn't think she could ever talk to them again.

Once they got to the house, they all sat around the living room. Lance had gone to get an ice pack for Kitty's black eye, while everyone found a seat, mostly facing each other so they could talk.

"So what's going to happen now?" Fred asked when Lance got back.

"Yeah, Kitty, do you think you can handle being a Brotherhood girl anymore?" Pietro asked. "None of the other girls could handle it, so if you want to leave..." he gestured out the door, but he didn't look like he wanted her to leave.

"Yeah, no one's stopping you if you don't want to stay," Todd said.

"Guys, I don't have anywhere else to go," Kitty said.

"What about the X-men?" Fred asked.

"They don't want me back," Kitty said, looking at the floor. Lance could tell something happened.

"What do you mean? They practically tried to drag you to the car this morning," Lance said.

"That was this morning. After school, they saw the fight," Kitty said. "And Lance, they...they just left me there, they could have stopped Brett right there, but they just left," Kitty was in tears now, and had run to Lance to sit on his lap and cry on his shoulder.

"It's okay, Kitty," Lance soothed, stroking her hair and comforting her for the second time that day. "Remember when I joined the X-men? Tabitha told me that you guys would never accept me, and that I wasn't good enough for you. Fred slammed me into a locker, but look at us now. They were just hurt that I left them, the way the X-men are now, just give them some time, they'll take you back."

"I don't want to go back, how could I live with them, not knowing whether they would leave me if they got angry?" Kitty asked between sobs. "Could I just stay here with you guys? I know I can't fight that well without my powers, but I could learn. And I could try to be more like Tabitha..."

"No!" The boys jumped up, the thought of having two Tabitha's at school was bad enough, one of them talking like a valley girl was just too weird for words.

"Well, I guess I could try and be a little tougher, you know, like, stand up for myself?" Kitty suggested.

"And maybe you could, like, totally stop talking like a valley girl!" Pietro mimicked in a high voice. Kitty thought he was insulting her for a second, but she realized that that was the way of the Brotherhood, they didn't mean any harm, they were just having fun.

"This could be interesting," Todd said, looking Kitty up and down. "A new Kitty, one who doesn't wear pink, doesn't talk like a valley girl, and who fights her own battles. I say we go to the store and get her a new outfit guys."

"Yeah!" Pietro exclaimed, something black, kind of tight, very revealing...." Pietro was soon talking to fast to understand, and before she knew what was happening, she was carried into the jeep, on her way to a new way of life, wondering just what she had gotten herself into.

**The End**

_Nah, I'm just kidding, but that would be an easy way to end of the story. And for those of you who don't know, when Lance is talking about Tabitha acting strange, it's all from "Walk on the Wild Side." And Lance's friends who left him, that's just from one of my other stories, "Headed towards home" so that's just my version. K, don't forget the review please!_


	4. A day with the Brotherhood

_Hey everyone, I got this chapter out sooner than I expected, it's not as great as I wanted it to be, but I'm having some trouble with this story. Any suggestions are appreciated._

_Thanks to my reviewers: _**Anti-XYo, person**_creative name by the way_**ReddistheRose, butterfly-grl4, Idypebsaby, Pyro Tsunami, geuss who, Nameless1010, Valley-Gurl1010, KoolKitty, persian85033, anwen, ali-cat333, xmengirlzrule, **_you guys rock! _

_Don't forget to review this chapter!_

Kitty had been whisked off into the jeep, carried by Pietro, before she could understand what she had just agreed to. At first, leaving the X-men was just something she had done because she was upset. She didn't realize it would take her this far. It was a thing of the moment, a decision that only took a couple of hours to make; would it make up for all the months she'd been lied to?

The boys had driven to a small store that Kitty had never been in, but looked like the place that Rogue would have shopped in.

"Okay, boys," Pietro said, taking charge, "we need a whole new wardrobe; we're talking shirts, skirts, shoes, the works people." Pietro, being the self-proclaimed leader of fashion, had decided to take it upon himself to get Kitty, what he called "brotherhood-sized."

The boys split up; each looking for a different thing that Kitty could wear. Fred came up with four nearly identical tight black shirts that were a little too low-cut for Kitty's liking; Lance came up with a jean jacket to wear over the shirts. Todd had a mini-skirt, and Pietro came with a pair of undergarments that made Kitty blush, that Lance made him put back.

Kitty looked at her new wardrobe in the dressing room. It was definitely new, nothing she would ever have dreamed of wearing before. It was revealing, but she supposed she should have expected it when she allowed four guys, only one who had a girlfriend, to pick out her clothes.

"It's...um...well..." Kitty struggled to find the right sentence. "Well, I guess, like, its okay. It's something a Brotherhood girl would wear, right?"

"Yup," Pietro said proudly, "so you like it?"

"It looks good on you Kitty," Lance said.

"Yeah, we'll have to keep the other guys off you, like, Wham!" Pietro punched the air, almost hitting Todd, which resulted in Todd hitting him back. This led to a full out war between Todd, Pietro, and Fred, who had decided to join in.

"Are they always like this?" Kitty asked Lance.

"No, they're actually behaving tonight. Must be showing off for you," Lance told her as he paid. He laughed when he saw the look on her face. If this was the Brotherhood behaving well, what had she gotten herself into?

The store was right next to a comic book store, and as they walked by, Kitty could see Jamie looking at some of the comics.

"Jamie!" Kitty yelled, even though she was mad at him, and didn't want to talk to him. "What are you doing here? You're not allowed outside the mansion."

"Oh, hey, Kitty," Jamie said, not looking up from the comic he was reading. "I always go out, they got new comics today, so I just left a multiple at the mansion, he'll cover for me."

"You do this every week?" Kitty asked.

"Yeah," Jamie said. "Hey, where've you been lately? I haven't seen you since yesterday."

"I left the X-men, Jamie," Kitty said. "I thought someone would have told you."

"You left?" This caused Jamie to actually look up. "Where'd you go...?" Jamie stopped, seeing the Brotherhood. "I know I'm just a kid, but aren't they the bad guys?"

"They're the X-men's enemies, but they don't read my diary," she told Jamie.

"How'd you know I read your diary?" Jamie asked.

"The recruits were talking about it; did you really tell Jean and Scott what was in it?" Kitty asked.

"No," Jamie said defensively, "I never tell what people have in their diaries."

"Wait," Lance butted in, "you read more than Kitty's?"

"Well, yeah," Jamie said. "I mean, I'm at home six hours a day, five days a week, usually without even the adults there, I've found every diary in the mansion, even Rogue's, and man, that wasn't easy."

"Why do you read other people's diary?" Kitty asked. "That's totally invading their privacy."

"I'm bored," Jamie protested. "See how you like it when you're by yourself all day. I have nothing better to do."

"So my dairy isn't the only one you read?" Kitty asked.

"Heck no," Jamie said, "Usually, I avoid yours; your diary is probably the most boring out of all of them."

"Oh... okay," Kitty said. After saying bye to Jamie, the Brotherhood and Kitty walked to their car.

The ride home was equally as loud as obnoxious as the fight in the store. None of them had been hurt in the fight, so they felt no reason to simmer down. Kitty had gotten a side seat, but was still in between Pietro and the door, and was doing her best not to move.

Todd had slapped Pietro, which had caused him to elbow Kitty.

"Hey, Pietro, stop it!" Kitty yelled, scooting as far away from him as possible.

"Yeah, guys calm down," Lance called from the front seat.

"Oh of course, Lancey-pooh," Pietro mocked.

"We wouldn't want to bother his precious Kitty- cat, now would we, yo?" Todd laughed.

"Just be quiet back there," Lance said, glaring at them through the mirror.

"Yes sir!" They both saluted. Then, turning towards each other, they started taking turns on different ways of flipping the other one off.

Todd did some martial arts moves with his hands, finally ending up with the middle finger in the air.

Pietro started to list things, without talking, putting down one finger at a time, until the middle finger was the only one left.

Kitty watched with slight, fascination, slight disgust as Pietro and Todd continued flipping each other off, and moved on to other random things. All while not saying a word, so Lance didn't know what was going on.

She couldn't help it, she giggled. Pietro and Todd turned to her for a second, and then went back to what they were doing. Kitty didn't know if it was a Brotherhood thing, or a guy thing, but it was seriously weird.

Once they got back into the house, Pietro raced off to his room, the other boys headed to watch TV, and Kitty went to get dinner ready.

Bending down to get pots and pans was too difficult in Kitty's new miniskirt, so she settled on just making a quick salad. Of course, when Blob came in, he told her that a salad wasn't big enough to fill him up, and that she would have to make something else, but when she tried another dish, Todd walked in and said he wouldn't eat that. Kitty ended up changing the meal three more times before the boys would eat.

"This is good, Kitty," Todd said, as he ate some hamburger helper. Since Kitty wouldn't eat it, she was eating a salad, still fuming over the menu changes. She worked hard on her meals, and the boys never said thank you, they just demanded their way.

"What's wrong, Kitty?" Lance asked, noticing she didn't look happy.

"Nothing," Kitty responded, and went back to eating.

After, dinner, while Kitty was washing dishes, Lance walked in, picked up a towel, and started drying.

"It's okay Lance, I got it," Kitty said, taking the towel away from him.

"What's wrong Kitty?" Lance asked.

"Nothing, Lance," Kitty said.

Lance gently took her face in his hands. "Something's wrong Kitty," he said. "You might as well tell me. Is it about dinner?"

Kitty sighed, knowing Lance wouldn't leave her alone until she told him. "Yes...well, not really, it's part of it. Oh, Lance, I'm so confused," Kitty said, and for the second time that day, collapsed in Lance's arms, crying.

"Hey, it's okay," Lance said, trying to comfort her.

"No it's not!" Kitty said. "I lost my best friends, I mean, I know that Jamie isn't bad after all but still, I got beat up by jocks, I'm wearing an outfit that would make my mom faint if she ever saw me in, and I'm living with my former enemies..." She stopped suddenly. "Lance, I'm sorry, I didn't mean that..."

"I know," Lance interrupted her, "it's okay, just remember, we're not your enemies anymore."

"I get that Lance," Kitty said, "but it's hard to accept."

"I know, when I joined you guys, I was always worried that I would have to fight the guys, I wasn't sure who's side I would have taken," Lance said. "Listen, how about you save the dishes for later, and we have a Brotherhood family night?"

Kitty brushed some of the tears away with her hand. "Brotherhood family night?" She asked. "What's that?"

"We get some soda's, some popcorn, play a game, watch a movie, I don't know, something to kind of, initiate you into the Brotherhood," Lance said.

"That sounds like fun, Lance," Kitty said, and allowed herself to be led into the living room.

"Hey, guys!" Lance called up the stairs. "We're going to watch a movie, get your butts down here!"

Pietro was down the stairs in a second. "Why?" He asked. "We only watch movies together on Sundays, it's Tuesday."

"It's a welcome thing for Kitty," Lance said.

"Oh, well, can I pick the movie?" Pietro asked.

"No way, yo," Todd hopped in, "it's my turn to pick the movie."

""No it isn't," Fred said, "it's my turn."

"Kitty gets to pick," Lance said. "It's her first night with us, she chooses."

Pietro looked like he was about to protest, but stopped when he looked at Kitty. He could tell she had been crying, and decided to give in to Lance's request, the first time that he could remember.

"So, what do you want to see, Kitty?" He asked instead.

"How about Finding Nemo?" She suggested, but decided against it when she saw the looks of disgust on the boy's face. "Um...do you guys like Pirates of the Caribbean? It was always a favorite at the instit..." She stopped, and looked like she was about to cry again at the mention of the institute.

"Yeah, Kitty, Pirates is fine," Lance quickly rushed in, nodding his head to Fred, signaling him to put the movie in.

And so the Brotherhood spent the night in the living room. Lance and Kitty were on the couch, Kitty leaning against Lance, a blanket covering them both, Fred on the computer chair, Pietro on the bean bag chair, and Todd, having been kicked off of everything else, was on the floor. Everyone except for Lance had fallen asleep sometime during the movie, comfortable in the room with everyone else. They didn't have to worry about anything right now. They were a family, and that was enough. Lance smiled to himself as he turned the TV off with the remote, and fell asleep, using Kitty's head as a pillow.

* * *

Earlier that day

Rogue had been stuck in one of her classes later than usual, and when she got out, a fight was just breaking up.

"Hey Rogue," a short girl with glasses, Jodi, called out. Jodi was one of the few humans who still talked to mutants, but probably because she didn't know that they were mutants. Jodi was one of those people who didn't know anything that was going on in the world around her.

"Oh, hey, Jodi," Rogue said. "What happened here?"

"You didn't hear?" Jodi asked. "Wow, it was all over school. Well, Kitty went over to the Brotherhood, and the football players didn't like it, so they decided to go beat her up."

Rogue instantly became worried. "What happened then?"

Jodi shrugged. "I don't know," she said, "I couldn't see over the people who were watching."

"Did any of her friends help her?" Rogue asked.

"Well, I'm not sure, but I saw some of your friends, Bobby and Kurt, walk out of the crowd." She looked thoughtful for a minute. "I'm pretty sure I heard Kitty call after them, but I could be wrong, but they all just walked out from the fight."

"Are you saying they didn't help her?"

"Nope," Jodi said. "I would have helped, but I couldn't get through... Rogue? Rogue, what's the matter?" She asked, as Rogue stormed off.

Rogue was furious. She had to walk home, since she missed the bus, but the long walk did nothing to calm her down. They just left her! Who knew what could have happened to her. How could they just leave her there?

When Rogue got inside, she went straight to the rec. room, where the students usually went to after school.

"Okay, ya yahoos," Rogue said, her southern drawl coming out. "Which one of you was at the fight today?"

"What fight?" Scott asked.

"The one between the jocks and Kitty," Bobby told him calmly.

"The one were these so-called teammates just left Kitty by herself!" Rogue shouted. "You know she's not allowed to use her powers, how could you just leave her?"

"She left us!" Bobby said.

"That's no excuse to just let her get beat up like that!" Rogue said.

"Hey man, it works out, she left us, we left her," Bobby said.

"And besides," Sam said, "I saw the Brotherhood help her, she's fine except for a couple of bumps and bruises."

"Well, I guess that proves one thing," Rogue said. "The Brotherhood is better teammates then us." She was about to storm out, but Scott stopped her.

"Rouge, come on, she thinks she can get along without us, let her," he said. "Let her see how much she needs us, and she'll come back in no time."

"And if she ever does decide to come back, are you going to let her stay? I mean, she is an 'enemy' now; she's evil, isn't she? Admit it Scott, you wouldn't let her come back, would you? Would you?" She took Scott's silence for an answer. "Well, then I hope you can live with yourself," she said, using the line he had said to her when she was their enemy.

Wolverine, who had walked into the room in time to hear what was going on, stormed out after her. "I think you guys need to learn what team work really is," he said before he left. "You're all grounded, and I mean extra chores and everything, until you understand what jerks you've been."

The remaining X-men and New recruits stared at each other in shock.

"She's the one who left us!" Bobby called after him. "Why are we being grounded because she screwed up? She should be in trouble, not us!"

"Shut up, Bobby," Kurt said. "She left us, but she had every right to," he glared at Scott and Jean, "but that's no reason to stoop down to the Brotherhood's level. Logan and Rogue have every right to be mad, we messed up, we left a teammate, even if it is an X- teammate, maybe we aren't the good guys we think we are." He bamfed out of the room, leaving the X-men to once again think about what had just happened.

_Yeah, I made Jamie a good guy, but I couldn't help it, I hope this chapter kind of helps explain why the X-men were being such jerks, but I'm just getting started, really. I'm going to forget the X-men for a while, focus on the Brotherhood and Kitty, but tell me if you want to see more of them. Thanx. R&R!_


	5. Gone camping

**Hey everybody, sorry this has taken so long to come out, and that's incredibly short but I've been reading other stories instead of writing my own, it's just much easier that way. Anyways, thanks to all my reviewers: XME, deathwish, Toffee-Popcorn, Jubilee124, Anti-XYo, NightCrawler28 (and yes, Sal is a jerk), Persian85033, Rushikayu13, Goofn1, Mikomi Bansiki, ali-cat333, Idypebsaby, fudje, Lance Avalanche Alvers, Guess who, WickedWitch, ember queen: you guys rock!**

Lance had quietly tiptoed out of the room, making sure that none of the others would wake up. They were still knocked out from last nights 'family movie night'. Lance had a surprise for them all. He didn't know for sure if it would work, but he figured he owed it to Kitty.

He went to the phone, and dialed a number from a piece of paper he had in his pocket.

"Hello?" He said when the phone stopped ringing.

"Get up you guys," Lance said, walking around the living room, yanking off various blankets and jerking away pillows from the sleeping kids.

"Come on, Lance," Todd protested as Lance took the pillow from under his head, "can't we just miss first period?"

"We're skipping school today," Lance told him, starting to fold up one of the blankets he had taken.

"Then why do we need to get up?" Pietro asked.

"We're going on a trip," Lance said.

"A trip," Freddy asked, "to where?"

"We're going to the mountains, you know for some more family stuff and all that crap," Lance said.

"Works for me," Kitty said, getting up and looking at her black eye in the mirror, "I wasn't looking forward to seeing everyone at school today anyways."

"Yeah that's what I figured,' Lance said. "Now start packing, we leave in an hour."

Kitty rushed upstairs to her room to get her things. "Lance! How long are we going to be gone?" she called to him downstairs.

"Three days," Lance called back.

"Three days," Kitty mused, tapping her finger against her shin thoughtfully. "Lance!" She called again.

"What?" Lance called from downstairs.

"Is it going to be cold?"

Lance shook his head in shame. Maybe his girlfriend wasn't the smartest in the universe, but at least she was cute. "It's freezing here, Kitty, in the mountains, it's even colder. My guess is that you should pack some warm clothes."

"Okay, thanks," Kitty said, looking for her warmer clothes. Unfortunately, she realized that she didn't bring them. She had brought everything from her room, but she had run out of room in her closet, and had dropped some of the clothes she couldn't wear during the summer in Bobby's room. She figured it was so messy anyway, he wouldn't notice if she put some stuff in his closet. Of course, she hadn't gotten them out of there yet, so the clothes she needed were…

"at the mansion, Lance," Kitty told him. "All the clothes I need are at the mansion, and I am not going back there."

Kitty had started panicking when she realized her blunder. She was not ready to face the X-men, but Lance looked so happy about going, she couldn't kill this trip for him.

"I know that nobody besides Jamie is home, but how are we supposed to get in there, they probably have the mansion locked and guarded, and I don't want to break everything," Kitty said.

"Hey, don't worry pretty Kitty," Lance said. "I'm sure Pietro knows how to get in. He's gone there tons of times."

He went to the bottom of the stairs, and yelled, "Pietro, run down to the mansion and get Kitty's clothes."

In a flash, Pietro was down the stairs. "I thought we got all of it."

"That was my summer and fall clothes," Kitty explained, "all the clothes I need for the snow are in Bobby's room."

"The ice guy?" Pietro asked.

"Yeah, he's on the second floor…" Kitty started, but Pietro had already taken off.

"Don't worry," Lance said, looking at her confused expression. "He knows all the rooms, and who they belong to."

"Do I want to know why?" Kitty asked.

"Probably not," Lance said, with a mischievous smile on his face.

"Wait, all the things that went missing, you guys took them!" Kitty explained.

Lance's smile dropped, not wanting to get Kitty upset. "Well, I'm sure you can pack some of your other stuff, and Pietro should be back any second. Oh, yeah, here he is now."

Kitty let the subject drop, but only because Pietro was actually there.

"Did you have any trouble getting in?" Lance asked.

"Please, against those pathetic weapons? Man, I could get in and out of there with my eyes shut," Pietro bragged. He handed Kitty a bag of clothes. "Here you go, but you owe me, do you know how messy that room is?"

"No time for that now, we've got to go," Lance said. "Kitty, since all your stuffs in the bag, go out to the jeep and start it, so we can have the heater on, I'll get your stuff out there."

"Sure Lance," Kitty said, grabbing the keys. She walked outside and turned the jeep on. She fiddled with the radio dial a bit, trying to get her favorite radio station, one that no one else knew about. "Ah ha!" She said when she finally found it.

_Rubber ducky, you're the one…_

"You make bath time lots of fun!" Kitty sang along. It was radio Disney, a station really made for kids 14 and younger, but Kitty still listened to it when no one was around. And best of all, it was during school hours, which meant that it was playhouse Disney, which played all the kid songs from the movies.

She was still in the car when "Under the Sea" was on, singing along with all the words she knew, when suddenly she heard laughing from behind her.

"Oh my gosh, you still listen to Radio Disney?" Todd asked as he tossed a luggage bag into the back. "Even Fred doesn't listen to that junk yo."

Kitty's face burned with embarrassment, she hadn't heard the guys coming.

"Is this the song from the mermaid movie?" Fred asked.

"Yeah," Lance said, as they started into the car, their bags safely tucked in the back. "Never understood that movie, don't you think that Ariel or whatever her name was would just knock the octopus out, take her potions, and live happily ever after?"

"Yeah," Pietro agreed. "None of those Disney flicks make sense. I mean, you know "Beauty and the Beast"? When Gaston is trying to convince the Beauty girl…"

"Belle?" Kitty supplied.

"Yeah, yeah, Belle, anyways, he tries to get her to marry him. He already has the wedding planned, guests there and everything, and he hasn't even asked her yet. So he tells her how great of a husband he would make, and how great he is…"

"Sounds like you, Pie," Todd chimed in.

"Quiet you," Pietro said, slapping him lightly on the head. "Anyways so Belle gets annoyed and throws him out. That's all she does. You'd think she'd be cussing him out and hitting him with a base ball bat or something."

"Yeah, you're right," Todd agreed. "There's a lot messed up about these Disney movies. Like, how could they kill the fish in 'Finding Nemo'? That Coral chick? This is supposed to be a comedy, and they kill somebody in the first five minutes."

"Nah," Fred said, "She didn't die, she paid the shark to knock the other fish out, took the kids, and became a showgirl in fish Vegas."

"I don't think that hiring a hit guy to take the husband out, kidnapping the kids, and becoming a showgirl has a good message coming across either," Lance pointed out.

"And have you ever noticed all the bad things in all the shows," Todd said. "Like how 'sex' is written in the sky in 'the Lion King', or how the priest gets a boner in the 'Little Mermaid'? I mean, aren't these shows supposed to be made for the little kids?"

Kitty sat in silence as the guys continued their talk on the things in Disney movies. At least they would forget about her listening to radio Disney.

"Why didn't Snow White just knock the witch out? It would have made things a lot easier."

But it was going to be a long car ride to the cabin.

By the time they got to the cabin, the brotherhood boys had torn apart every Disney movie she loved. It made for an interesting trip, but it made her question the boys' sanity. For people who said they hated Disney movies, they sure knew a lot about them.

"Okay guys, start unloading," Lance said, taking out some keys from his pocket.

"How'd you get a cabin anyway," Pietro asked. "Do they know we're mutants?"

"Yeah," Lance answered, "it's my foster uncle's cabin, and he's a mutant too, so we're okay."

"I'm going to start dinner after I unpack," Kitty announced, picking up her stuff.

"But what about lunch?" Fred asked.

"Well, since we didn't have a real Thanksgiving dinner, I figured we could have one now," Kitty said.

"That's a great idea Kitty," Lance said.

They went to their separate rooms to unpack. It was so nice here, Kitty got a clean, fresh bedroom, with a view of the forest and the trees slightly decorated with snow. She felt so refreshed, so free. It was like she was a new person here; and she had only been here five minutes. This was going to be a great vacation.

Or so she thought.

Later, she and Lance were down in the kitchen. Kitty was opening up a can of olives, and Lance was trying to figure out how to make the Turkey work, because Kitty didn't want to touch it.

Once Kitty opened the olives, she sampled one.

"Whoa, these things taste bad," she said as Todd, Fred, and Pietro came in. "Hey Todd, try one," Kitty said, holding one out to him.

"Man, these things stink," he said, grabbing the can, and holding it out for Pietro.

"They can't be that bad," he said as he grabbed one and popped it in his mouth. "Ah man, these olives are totally rotten!"

Fred sighed and took the can. "Let a true master of food handle this," he said as he ate one. "Ewww, these olives are bad!" He held the can out to Lance.

Lance looked at his friends, and the can that Fred was holding out. "You guys are idiots" he smirked, and walked out of the room.

"What do you think his problem is?" Fred asked.

Todd smiled evilly, "I don't know, but I don't think he has the right to call us idiots, I'll be right back."

The remaining three in the room shrugged, and went back to work. After a couple of minutes, Kitty left everything to cook, and went to talk to Lance.

"Lance?" she asked as she knocked on his door, and started to open it.

"Kitty!" a voice hissed, and knocked her out of the way. It was Todd, and he dragged her to his doorway, covering her mouth.

"Kitty?" Lance asked as he opened the door. Suddenly, a bucket of slime fell on his head, splattering him with Toad's trademark.

Todd couldn't help it; he fell on the floor laughing. "Aw, man, I should've had a camera," he gasped in between sits of laughter.

"Don't worry," Pietro said, rushing up the stairs, "I always keep one handy in case of an emergency." He started snapping photographs of the slime-covered Lance.

"Toad! You are so going to die when I catch you!" Lance screamed, chasing after Todd, the others rolling over laughing.

"Aww…" Kitty said, stepping in his path, "I think that green looks really good on you, Lance."

Lance blushed and stopped chasing after Lance. "You do?" he asked her.

"Of course," she said, taking his arm in hers, and mouthing the words, 'you owe me,' to Todd as they left the room. "Now let's get you cleaned up."

As they made their way to the bathroom, they heard a noise coming from outside.

"What was that?" Kitty asked, as Lance ran to the door. Suddenly, the door was kicked down, and a charged card came floating down to the floor.

"Miss me?" Remy asked, as he and Pyro came through the door.

It looked like Kitty's perfect vacation had been ruined after all.

**Sorry it's so short, but I'm planning a big chapter next, so keep R&R. Thanks!**

**LanceIsHot**


	6. Secret Plans

**A/N Here's the next chapter! Okay, note here, it's after the sentinel incident, but Magneto and Mystique and everyone else is gone. Just in case you needed to know. **

"Miss me?" Remy asked as he walked through the door.

"What do you want?" Lance snarled, standing protectively in front of Kitty.

"Get out of here," Pietro said.

"Hey Speedy," Pyro said. "Hey, we have some luggage in the car, can you start bringing it in for us?" Pietro stopped, and looked confused, until Remy pushed him lightly out.

"The car," he whispered as Pietro was pushed out the door. He then looked at Lance and burst out laughing.

"Is that slime?" he asked, pointing at his head, which was still covered in the slime that Todd had dumped on him.

"Man, what happened to you?" Pyro asked.

"Why are you here?" Kitty asked, ignoring their questions.

"Hey, chill out, Magneto just told us to come down here and check you out," Pyro eyed Kitty.

"He meant to see if she was Acolyte material," Remy said, smacking Pyro on the head. "Not to check her out."

"Kitty's staying with us," Lance said. "How'd Magneto even know she was with us, or where we were?"

"Magneto knows everything about you guys," Pyro said, in what could be considered his most serious voice. He sat himself on the desk in the entryway, and started flicking his lighter.

"He knows about the time when Lance joined the X-men, when you got kicked out of school, and when you fought your way back in, which Remy still can't understand," Remy said.

"And when he said that a girl had joined you guys, well, we had to come out and get a closer look," Pyro finished, checking Kitty out.

"Why is Magneto watching us?" Todd asked.

"Just in case one of you decides to do something stupid," Remy said, taking out a deck of cards.

"Hit the deck!" Todd screamed, remembering the last time Remy had cards out, and almost charged him into oblivion. Remy laughed, and started to shuffle his cards.

"Don't worry, if we wanted to attack you, we would've already done it," Remy said.

"This is more of a vacation," Pyro said, "a break from the hard work of doing nothing while Magneto busies himself with plans of taking over the world."

"It's actually very tiresome," Remy said.

"We don't want you here," Lance said.

"Hey, mate, we're not really _wanted_ anywhere," Pyro said.

"Not much different from you," Remy pointed out.

Kitty pulled Lance towards her, "They're not going to leave, might as well enjoy ourselves right?"

Lance looked at her, trying to decide if she was serious. Once he decided she was, he said, "You and your stupid optimism." He turned towards their uninvited guests, "you guys can stay, but you do anything wrong, and I'm kicking you out of here. And what's your problem?"

Pyro was staring at him intently, "you know, you kind of look like the Hulk, only, without the muscles," he said. Lance rolled his eyes, and went to wash off the slime that was starting to leak into his shirt.

"Well, since we have more people than expected, I expect you two to set the table," Kitty said to Remy and Pyro, "and you two to help me in the kitchen," to Todd and Fred.

Pyro and Remy stood there, mouths open as the others left. The mighty Gambit and Pyro taking orders from a girl? Mystique, they might listen to, but only because she was scary, but this was a 15 year old girl who looked like she would freak out if she broke a nail.

"Hey, should we be doing this?" Pyro nudged Remy. "I mean, we're supposed to…"

"Remy knows what's to be done," Remy snapped. "Just play along for now, we'll see what happens."

They searched around a few random cupboards, until they found some dishes. Pyro stood with some forks and knives, and stared at the table, with a confused look on his face.

"What's wrong?" Remy asked, noticing his friend's confused expression.

"I don't know how to set the table," Pyro confessed sheepishly. Remy rolled his eyes.

"Aw come on, it's just the fork on the...wait, Remy don't know either," Remy said.

"We're terrorists, why do we need to know how to set the table?" Pyro asked.

"Who cares," Remy said, "just throw them anywhere. And when Remy say 'throw' he means put them in any order, not throw them across the room again."

"It was just the one time," Pyro said.

Remy rolled his eyes, and continued setting the table.

In the kitchen, Kitty was starting to regret having Todd and Fred help her. Between Todd sliming things while taste-testing them, and Fred eating everything that came too close to him, she wasn't sure that there was going to be any food left for the others.

"Fred! Don't eat the cauliflower. Todd! When I said to check the potatoes, I did not mean stick your tongue in!" Kitty yelled. "Okay, you guys go help the others with setting the table, I'll handle this, and where's Pietro?"

"He came in a couple minutes ago, but he didn't have any of the suitcases," Todd said, "when I told him to help us, he said no."

"He said you were too bossy," Fred said. Kitty rolled her eyes, she might be bossy, but nobody did anything around here unless they were forced to. She didn't have a choice.

"So, what do you think Gambit and Pyro are doing here," Todd asked, lowering his voice.

"I don't know," Lance said, walking into the room, "but I hope they don't plan on staying, we don't have enough rooms as it is."

"Well, they have a lot of stuff in their car," Fred said.

"Yeah, I think they're planning on staying with us for awhile," Todd said.

"Why would two of Magneto's lackey's need to stay with us?" Lance mussed out loud.

"You don't think he's spying on us, do you?" Kitty asked.

"If he wasn't, how could he have known about this cabin?" Lance asked. "The question is, why does he need more people to spy on us? He seemed to have enough information before, why does he need people here to watch us? Especially since he's avoided us since we fought Apocalypse."

"He's planning something," Todd said.

"And we're part of it," Kitty finished.

"What should we do?" Fred asked.

"For now," Lance said, "we just play along, act like nothing's happening. We'll see what happens later."

So through dinner, which was delicious in Kitty's opinion, even if she couldn't have the turkey, they acted like nothing was happening. Except for Pietro, he was acting strange, well, strange for him; he seemed to be eating slowly, slower than usual. But, Kitty supposed it was because he was an Acolyte for a while, and that he was just nervous about his old teammates watching him.

"Hey, Pie, what's wrong?" Todd asked, also noticing that Pietro wasn't his normal cocky self.

"Nothing," Pietro muttered, and put some food in his mouth, ending any more questions.

Lance knew something was wrong, but he figured that he would wait until after dinner. Besides Pietro, everyone seemed to enjoy themselves, and was having a pretty good time. It was a bit awkward for Kitty to be dining with people whom she had fought against at least once, but, she had also worked together with them, so she figured it was alright.

After dinner, Kitty started getting the dishes together. "Remy I need you and…" Kitty paused, and looked at Pyro, "what's your real name?"

"St. John Allerdyce, but you can call me John," he said.

"Okay, so you and Remy get the dishes into the sink, Fred and Todd, I need you to put the left over food away, actually, Remy and Todd put the food away, I don't trust you Freddy," Kitty said.

"Where do you get off thinking that you can boss Remy around?" Remy said.

"Since you wouldn't do anything if I didn't tell you what to do," Kitty said calmly.

"Awww… I always have to wash the dishes," John complained. "How come Lance and Pietro don't have to do anything?"

"Just do it, you sound like a little kid," Kitty said. The four boys went to do their assigned chores, Remy complaining all the way.

"Pietro, I need to talk to you," Lance said, "in the living room." He expected Pietro to run off, and then complain that Lance was to slow when he finally got there, but he walked at a rate that was normal for regular people.

"Now," Lance said, once they were seated on the couch in the living room, "what's up with you? You usually eat as fast as Freddy," Lance told Pietro.

"I'm fine," Pietro said.

"Sure," Kitty said sarcastically. She made a face when she heard a dish break in the kitchen. "I'll leave you guys to talk; I have to make sure that the others don't kill themselves."

"So, now are you ready to talk?" Lance asked, once Kitty left. "Do you know what your father is planning?"

"Of course I do," he snapped.

When he didn't say anything further, Lance said, "So, what's going on?"

Pietro suddenly looked up at Lance and smiled. "This," he said, and stabbed him with a needle.

"What…what'd you do?" Lance asked, as he passed out on the ground.

* * *

Meanwhile, in the kitchen, Kitty was having a hard time keeping things under control.

"Todd, don't drop that plate you're not even supposed to be washing the dishes," there was a crash, "Fred! You're getting water everywhere!" There was a splash, and then a whoosh of fire, "John, I appreciate the fact that you're trying to help, but making a fire to evaporate the water is not going to do much."

Remy was leaning against a wall, not even bothering to help. "Looks like you're really in control, chere," he said sarcastically.

"Well you could try to help," Kitty said. "Lance," she said, as Lance walked into the room, "could you keep your friends under control here?"

"Of course, Pretty Kitty," Lance said, with a nasty smile on his face. Suddenly, he pulled out a handkerchief and grabbed Kitty, and put in over her mouth. "Bye Kitty," he said as she lost consciousness.

**So, it's not the big chapter I promised, but now it's a cliffhanger, which is even better. I bet you weren't expecting that, huh? So, don't forget to review! **

**Oh, and thanks to my awesome-ly awesome reviewers: Anti-XYo, GothikStrawberry, Reddistherose, fudje, xmengirlzrule, and Idypebsaby.**

**And to those of you who left reviews that I just _have_ to respond to, it's shout outs!**

**Valley Gurl 101- I would love to put in some love triangles, unfortunately, I don't know too much about the subject, and also, there's this mysterious 'Lance and Pietro just went berserk,' thing going on, so I might not have time to do it, thanks for your suggestion though!**

**EmeraldKatsEye- I thought you were serious about the 'darling' there in your review, man, I was cracking up, ah, it brought a smile to my face. **

**Ellen- yes, I know Kitty is very smart, but as you said, she's not really known for her common sense, for example 'the muffin incident'. Also, I get great grades, and am good on a computer, but I've been called a 'blonde at heart' more than once (I'm a brunette actually, but people tell me I'd make a great blonde, I'm not sure if that's an insult or not.)**

**Justjo438- Would you believe my family gave me the inspiration for the olive sampling story? They actually did it themselves, only they got through the entire can of rotten olives before they stopped.**

**XME- he he, I like my username to. There's a long story behind it, but I don't want to waste valuable reading time. **

**NightCrawler28- Sal's a jerk!**

**Ali-cat333- I don't know, maybe I'll bring Rogue in, I haven't decided yet, so, who knows?**

**Wow, that got long, anyways, don't forget to review this chapter!**


	7. Memories

**A/N- okay everyone, first off, on a personal note, my sister has just informed me she was talking to people who's IM screen name she found in profiles. She's been instructed to not do it again, and I'm truly sorry for any inconvenience, and oh yeah, whatever she said about me is not true. **

**Now, I had an idea for what was going to happen next, but halfway through writing it, decided it was bad. So I came up with this, but it's only going to be one more chapter. But I'm thinking of a sequel, I'm not sure yet, review and tell me what you think. Sorry if this chapters confusing at first, but I think I exlain it enough.**

Kitty was always happy with her life at the Brotherhood. Even though there wasn't a whole lot of food, there weren't many people to talk to, or places that they were allowed to go, she was pretty content. She was on good terms with all four members; they were always there to protect her. There was always someone to fight for her, to make up excuses on why she didn't do her homework, or to just hang out with. There was just one thing missing.

Her memories.

Not all of them, mind you. There were some major events there. But she couldn't remember any holidays, or birthdays, or any special events like that. She got headaches a lot, and she was constantly forgetting things that the others talked about.

And there was one thing that really scared her. She couldn't remember why she had gone with Lance over the X-men. She knew she did before, she could remember knowing that she knew why she chose him. But when she woke up this morning, and looked around her bedroom, she had a feeling that she wasn't supposed to be here. Like, something had changed, and no one told her.

She got out of bed, and started down the hall to the bathroom. She closed her eyes and yawned, still walking towards the bathroom; it wasn't like she didn't have the route memorized.

**Bang**. She hit her head on the wall. 'Hey, wait, the bathroom isn't here,' she thought, putting her hand on the wall. But she knew it was, that's where the bathroom always was. But suddenly, she realized her mistake, and laughed as she turned the other way, to where the bathroom _really_ was.

The way she remembered the bathroom being the other direction, she could picture it in her mind, like she had been there before, it was bugging her. But she pushed the thoughts aside; it was probably a dream that was just too real.

Besides, there were other things to worry about. This morning was going to fully be devoted to figuring out why she joined the Brotherhood.

She could picture the day in her head. She fell out of a locker that two girls had shoved her in, right through the door. The only witness to this miracle was a cute senior who normally wouldn't have given her a second glance. As the day went on, things got stranger and stranger, the boy also had weird powers, and wanted her to join him, and then a girl who looked like she could be a model stepped into the scene.

That's when things really got confusing. The girl had powers too, powers to read her mind. Ah, that's what it was. The girl was trying to mind control her, to take over her brain, making Kitty join her.

Wait a minute, Jean wouldn't do that. She was such a goody-two shoes that she probably didn't even know how to do something that cruel. But that's the way she remembered it, she could picture it in her head. And when Lance brought the building down on her parents, Kitty left with him. But now, she couldn't think of what caused her to do it.

She remembered talking to Pietro about it once, and he said that there were plenty of reasons why she joined them instead of the X-men, and Kitty had believed him. But it didn't make sense. The Brotherhood boys were all guys who didn't care about what others thought. They were loud, sometimes rude, rule breakers, and got horrible grades.

But Kitty could always remember being a sweet, naïve, rule-abiding, straight A student.

Oh well, there was too much to get done to think about the past. Once she finished getting dressed and putting on make-up, she went done to make breakfast. She didn't actually eat any, but Fred went nuts if breakfast wasn't made when he got up.

She got some eggs and a pan out, the thoughts of earlier already forgotten. It wasn't that she was stupid, or had a short attention span, it was just, concentrating on things that were bad just wasn't the Brotherhood's style. Funny as it sounded to others, the Brotherhood was probably the biggest group of optimists ever.

She flipped over the egg in the pan, and started making some French toast. She had always been a natural cook, for as long as she could remember. It was this skill that made her the official Brotherhood cook- a job that she was very proud of.

She put a pan in the sink, and turned the water on. She started to yell as the hot water burnt her hand, but stopped herself, they had water this month, she shouldn't complain. This was one of the lucky months that Magneto had decided to pay some of the bills. Most of the time, they had to live off of what Lance and Pietro made from their jobs.

It wasn't that Magneto didn't want them; in fact, he was doing it for them. He was trying to show them how hard life was, and was preparing them for the lives they would lead when they were old enough to join his team of Acolytes. They all respected Magneto, even though he didn't really have a lot to do with them. Besides a check that would sometimes come in the mail, they barely heard from him. But he was still their leader, and they would follow his orders in a second.

By the time Kitty was halfway though making breakfast, Fred and Todd had already come down. Fred immediately started getting a plate together of food, mumbling a quick 'hello' to Kitty. Todd didn't even manage that, he was not a morning person, and was never alert enough to make out words before seven. Of course, after something to eat, preferably flies, he was his normal, energetic self.

Lance and Pietro came down a little bit later, and by then, Kitty had finished breakfast and the coffee both of the boys drank. Until he had two cups of coffee in him, Kitty swore Lance didn't even open his eyes. She always expected him to walk into a wall or something, but so far, he had mastered his skill at sleep-walking.

After breakfast, the boys went to finish getting ready for school, and Kitty started picking up the living room, another one of her jobs in the Brotherhood house. She always did a great job on all her chores, just to prove to the guys that they needed her. She was proud that she was the only girl in the Brotherhood. They might have been weird, and a little bit on the mean side, but they were hers. No other girl had lived with them, a fact that Kitty was grateful for, she probably would have been jealous of another girl near her boys, even if she was only going out with Lance.

After a couple of minutes, the others came down, and they headed off for school. Lance drove, Fred sat in the passenger seat, and Kitty, Pietro and Todd sat in the back. Kitty sat in the middle, and shoved Todd out of her way when he got to close. It was how they always sat, and Kitty had gotten used to throwing Todd off of her.

When they finally got to school, Kitty kissed Lance goodbye, and headed off to her first period.

"Kitty, Kitty, wait," she heard a voice call from behind her. She turned around; it was Kurt, his image inducer on, waving at her, indicating for her to stop.

"What do you want Kurt?" She asked, annoyed. She didn't have time to fight with him today, she had to show up to class on time, or else she would get a detention, the one thing she refused to get.

"Where have you been?" Kurt asked her.

"What do you mean where have I been," Kitty asked. "I've been at home, I haven't gone anywhere."

"You've been gone two days," Kurt said. "You missed the assembly and everything."

"Kurt, there was no assembly, and I was here the last to days," Kitty said. "I did all my homework, and didn't fight with anyone, are you happy now?"

Kurt looked confused. He knew that Kitty was gone, he had tried to talk to her, but no one had seen her, and she hadn't been in his class.

"Okay, maybe I just didn't see you," Kurt said, and backed off. She obviously had no clue that she was gone, but what did that mean? He would call Scott later and see if he knew anything.

Kitty sighed, and walked to her class. Talking to the x-men was not something she looked forward to, as it always brought up memories of all the things that had happened. But Kurt was the creepiest of them all. She knew that underneath his image inducer, there was a demon, but she couldn't remember when she found out that. It's funny, meeting a demon was something she thought she would remember, but she just knew that she had stopped him from talking to Mystique, and she already knew about 'the fuzzy dude.'

The bell rang just as she slid into her seat. Thankfully, her teacher didn't seem to notice that she was late, which meant no detention for today. The announcements came on, and Kitty put her arms on her desk, and took a quick nap. Making breakfast for Fred and the others was hard work, and she figured she deserved a rest.

"**Hola clase**," a voice boomed. Kitty jumped in her seat, and blushed at the odd glances her classmates were giving her. Her teacher, who she only knew as Profe, had this thing about yelling as loud as he could at the beginning of class, just to make sure the class was awake. Just the thing Kitty needed to start out a school day.

Next period wasn't much better, even though Todd was in her class. They had to take a test, which Todd hadn't prepared for, and asked Kitty if his answers were right on almost every question.

"Kitty, is this one right?" Todd asked her.

She glanced at his paper, checking the question, and then his answer compared to hers. She blinked. "Todd," she hissed, "that's a yes or no question."

He checked his paper. "Oh, yeah, you're right,' he said. He scribbled down an answer, and moved on to the next one. Kitty sighed, and finished her test.

Two more classes, and it was lunchtime. Kitty cruised past the table where the new recruits were sitting at; ignoring the quizzical looks they gave her. They had also noticed she had been gone, but didn't want to ask her. They had all vowed to avoid her for now, in case they said something wrong, and invoked the wrath of Rogue again. She still wasn't speaking to them, but had gotten Logan to give them an impossible danger room session, one that he knew they weren't capable of doing. Sam still couldn't sit down right, and Jubilee had sworn off all electronics until further notice.

Kitty sat down under a tree with the boys. She always brought a lunch, just because she was too proud to get the free lunch, but the others were happily munching on their free food.

"Are you going to finish you're tater tots?" Pietro asked Lance. Lance quickly grabbed his cartoon of tater tots, afraid that Pietro's powers would take his precious 'tots' away. But while everyone was watching Lance, Pietro ran over to Todd, and grabbed a few from his carton, and was back before anyone noticed.

"Hey, what happened?" Todd asked. "There was a lot more in here!" He was looking in his carton, and realized that half of the tots were gone. While everyone was looking at him, Pietro ran to Lance, and took his now unprotected tots.

Kitty noticed this one, and had a flash of Evan, only, he was stealing milk. But he didn't call it milk, what was it? Moo juice? Was that it? But how could she have known that? She had never been close to Evan, how could she know what he called his milk? She shook it off as another dream, and went back to laughing at Lance's face as he discovered that his tots were missing.

"Hey, do you guys have detention today?" Kitty asked.

"I do," Lance said. "I missed another homework assignment, it's funny, I don't remember getting it."

"Well, knowing you," Pietro said, "you probably were thinking about Kitty, and just missed it, lover boy," and quickly dodged Lance's punch.

"I have detention too," Todd said.

"Me too," said Fred.

"How about you Pietro?" Kitty asked.

Pietro sat back down, and smoothed his hair, just in case one had fallen out of place. "Yeah, I've got it too. Funny how the fastest guy here is late to school every other day, huh?"

The others laughed, and continued eating their lunch. Kitty was once again the only one not in detention. It wasn't that she was a goody-good, like the X-men, but she couldn't stand the thought of being at school any longer than she had to. So she made sure that she stayed on the teacher's good side, no matter how hard it was.

"So, Kitty, are you going to walk home, or wait for us?" Lance asked. "I've only got it for an hour today."

"Nah," Kitty said, "I've got to get home, I'm making spaghetti, and I've got to start simmering the sauce."

"Oh, ok," Lance said as the bell rang. "I'll see you later than." He gave her a quick kiss, and they all headed off to their next class.

Later on that day, Kitty started walking home. Her last two classes were okay, even though her last period teacher was very prejudiced against mutants, and glared at her then entire period.

She hated walking home from school. It would have been okay, if the Brotherhood house was in the middle of the city, but there weren't any houses around it, and she always got creeped out. Imagining things that could happen were easier, and a lot scarier, when there's no one around to tell you its ok.

She looked away as she saw a black van drive towards her, hoping it wasn't jocks, or some other form of mutant haters. She tried to control her breathing as it got too close. She didn't want to show any human that she was afraid of them, that would totally trash the Brotherhood image.

Totally? Man, she was thinking like a valley girl. A valley girl… why did that sound so familiar? She laughed at herself, another crazy dream, geez; Lance would send her to a shrink forever if she told him.

The black van pulled up closer, and finally stopped beside her. Kitty considered running, but knew that the van could catch up no matter how fast she ran. The door to the side opened, and Kitty, who was standing very near to the edge of the sidewalk, was pulled in by someone.

At first she couldn't tell who it was, but suddenly, he transformed, morphed into…

"Mystique," Kitty said, as Mystique put a cloth around her nose and mouth, and Kitty faded away, with the memory of Lance changing into Mystique.

Flashback

"Magneto, I need more time," Mastermind was saying. "I can alter their minds, but without enough time, it won't be foolproof, they might remember their old lives too."

"We don't have enough time," Magneto snapped. "If we don't get them back to school, Xavier will notice. They've already missed two days, we can't afford for Xavier to come in. Besides," he paused, and looked at the four kids strapped to a table, "we have more pressing business than this."

"I can try, but the memories might only last a couple hours," Mastermind said. "Why do we need to do this again?"

Magneto sighed, it wasn't that hard to understand, why couldn't any of his employees get it?

"I admit, I haven't been the greatest leader to the Brotherhood," he said. "They no longer are loyal to me. Well, except for Pietro, but we aren't changing his memories anyway. And this girl," he placed a hand on Kitty's shoulder, "has only fought against me. She has no loyalty to me at all. But with her knowledge of the X-men, she can be very useful indeed. But she won't tell me anything, not without you making her think that I've always been her leader."

"But how will she know anything, if she thinks that she's been with you the entire time?" Mastermind asked.

"When we finish with our other business, we will take her back, and change her memories again, but this time, she'll still slightly think that I was her leader, and that she was only with the X-men for a while. But for now, I want her to only think of me, is that clear?" he asked Mastermind.

"Yes Magneto," Mastermind said. He went back to work, altering the minds of Todd, Fred, Lance and Kitty.

Present time- the Brotherhood house

"Kitty! Kitty, we're home!" Lance called out as he and the others walked in.

Fred sniffed. "You know, I don't smell spaghetti," he said.

"Where'd she go?" Todd asked, as Pietro ran through the house, looking for Kitty.

"She's not here," Pietro said, once he got back.

"But she said she was coming here," Lance said, "where else would she go?"

"You don't think something happened, do you?" Fred asked him.

Lance stood there for a minute, thinking. Where would Kitty have gone? He put a hand to his head, feeling another headache coming on. He'd had a headache almost all day, and wasn't looking forward to another one. Where had she gone other times? He couldn't remember, in fact, now that he thought about it, a lot about Kitty. Just some main points, like when she joined, and when he left here for the X-men.

Joined the X-men? What did that have to do with her? He was on a mission from Magneto, the others didn't even know until they saw him at school. But when he remembered it, he clearly saw Kitty kissing him, right before he left. Something was definitely wrong here.

He noticed Pietro start to sneak off. Whenever he did that, Magneto was in charge, and Pietro didn't want to get caught in the crossfire.

"Hey, where are you going?" Lance asked, grabbing Pietro's shirt before he could run off.

"It's okay Lance, Magneto has her," Pietro said. "But only for a little bit, she'll be back in no time."

"Why would Magneto want her?" Lance asked.

Pietro hesitated, wondering how much he should say, but then confessed. "He wants information on the X-men."

Lance laughed, "What would Kitty know about the X-men?" He asked, "She hates them just as much as we do."

Pietro stared at lance funny. "How much of your memory did they change?" he asked quietly. "They weren't supposed to change everything."

"What are you talking about?" Lance asked, picking Pietro up. "Kitty would never be an X-man… Oh, my god." Memories were flowing through his head, he dropped Pietro in shock. Kitty was an X-men, she had joined them for a week. And already Magneto had ruined it for him. Kitty would never want to stay with them now.

Fred and Todd looked confused, but suddenly, Todd seemed to be going through the same thing Lance was.

"The cabin," he said. "That's where this all started."

"Is he going to hurt her?" Lance asked Pietro.

Pietro looked miserably down at the floor. "Mastermind will have to change her memories again; Magneto doesn't know if her mind can take it."

"What are you saying?" Lance asked.

"You better find her now," Pietro said, "Magneto won't wait for you to stop him, he might have already started."

Lance cursed, and ran out to his jeep, Fred and Todd following, and they set off to save their teammate.

**Ok, just to let you know, I haven't seen that much of the 3rd season, so some information on Mastermind might be messed up. But it's AU, so who cares? Anyway, I hope I got mostly everything explained, review if there's something else please!**


	8. Magneto

**A/N Hey everyone, I know, it's been forever since I updated, but I wanted to put up a chapter on my other story, and it was kind of confusing making him a sort of bad guy in this story, and the hero in the other, so I just dropped both for a bit. Any way's, I know I said this would be the last chapter, but it was really long, so there's one more. RR please!**

Kurt had stayed far enough behind Kitty that she wouldn't be able to see him, but he still was afraid she would notice him, and get mad. She didn't seem that happy to see him at school, it worried him, so he decided to follow her home.

After 20 minutes of following her, he realized he didn't have much to worry about. She was off in her own little world, stopping to stare at a random cloud or flower, and she took 45 minutes to get home, twice as long as it normally took. He didn't know it was because she was trying to think things out.

He didn't know anything about what was going through her head when she was kidnapped. He didn't know that she was thinking about him, how she couldn't remember first meeting him. All he knew was someone had taken her, and he had to get help. He quickly teleported back to the mansion, in search of help.

"Scott! Scott!" He called as he landed in the front room. "Professor, Logan, anybody!" Usually, screaming loudly could bring at least five people out in seconds, but Kurt was afraid that they didn't have enough time, and yelled louder, as if to make the others go faster.

"What is it, Kurt?" Scott asked. He was pulling on his boot; he was already halfway dressed for whatever Kurt was yelling about.

"It's Kitty!" Kurt exclaimed, "She's been kidnapped!"

Bobby, who was leaning on a door frame, said, "Oh, is that all? I thought it was something important."

"Back off Drake," Scott said sternly, "If Kitty needs our help; we have to give it to her. If you want to sit this one out and let Ray take your place, that's fine, but I don't want you coming if you're going to act like that."

Bobby threw his hands up in the air in exasperation. "Am I the only one who realized that _she _ditched _us_? Why should we go try and save her every time she gets in trouble, she would have been fine if she never left."

Scott stared at him for a second, and said, "You have five minutes to get ready, if you're not out in the garage by then, Ray's taking your spot." He and Kurt took off to round up the others.

"Don't bother waiting!" Bobby called after them.

"How are we going to find her, Scott?" Kurt asked. "We have no idea where she is."

"Then we'll have to go to the source of the problem," Scott said, and Kurt gasped.

"You can't mean…"

"Yup, we're going to the Brotherhood's house."

* * *

"You know, I've never been in here," Amara said, as the X-van pulled into the Brotherhood's driveway.

"You're probably better off," Kurt said, "I went there once with Kitty, and there was pizza boxes stacked to the ceiling."

"Yeah," Jean agreed, "they're not exactly known for being neat-freaks."

"Well, they're the only one's who can help us," Logan, who was driving, said. "And besides, elf," he grinned, "you're room's starting to look like a shrine to Burger Bomb."

"That's different," Kurt insisted.

Logan, Jean, Scott, Rouge, Kurt, Amara and Ray had piled into the X-van to go to the Brotherhood's house. Amara had replaced Kitty on the main team, and Ray was there in Bobby's place. Storm and the Professor were back at the mansion, trying to use Cerebro to contact Kitty.

The Professor was trying to telepathically contact Kitty when she was kidnapped. He noticed that something was wrong with her mind immediately, and was startled when he found her memories had been changed. He had called Logan and Storm even before Kurt started following Kitty home. They had been preparing the X-van, and Rogue, Jean, and Scott had already started getting ready by the time Kurt got back.

The other X-men were just pulling up into the house when Lance, Todd, and Fred came running out, with Pietro right behind, looking more worried about the murderous glares the others were giving him than hurrying to the jeep.

By the time Lance saw the X-men, he had already grabbed Pietro, and was pushing him to the car, mumbling something about the fastest guy around was too slow, when he noticed them.

"What do you want, we're busy now," he snapped.

"We just want to help you find Kitty," Scott said.

"How'd you know she was gone?" Todd asked.

"You took her, didn't you?" Fred accused.

Lance rolled his eyes. "Fred, we know Magneto took her."

"Oh, yeah," Fred said, scratching his head in confusion.

"Look, we just want to make sure she's okay, do you know where Magneto's base is?" Scott asked.

Lance paused, as if trying to figure out where it was. "No, I don't," he admitted after a few seconds.

"I do," Pietro said. "I need to see some maps though, I haven't been there in a while, and I don't know if I'll know how to get there."

"Than how have you been talking to him?" Fred asked.

"My cell phone, it was his idea to let Kitty join us," Pietro admitted. "I've been calling him every couple days, and he said that there was a good chance that she'd switch to our side, and he told me to convince her to come over here, to join us. But he never said anything about changing her memories," he insisted.

"Wait, change her memories?" Ray asked. "Who said anything about changing her memories?"

"Mastermind changed her memories," Lance explained, "all of ours actually. We didn't even realize until Pietro mentioned that she was one of you."

"And then everything fell apart," Todd said.

"It was really weird feeling," Fred finished.

"So that's why she was acting weird today!" Kurt exclaimed.

"Yeah," Todd agreed, "until a couple of minutes ago, I would've sworn she never was an X-man, but now, it's all really confusing."

"Well, let's not waste time talking," Scott said, going into his leader-mode, "lead us to Magneto's base, and we'll take it from there."

"What!" all the members of the Brotherhood exclaimed.

"Why should you get to save her?" Lance demanded, going right up in Scott's face. "You kicked her out, remember? Besides, she's my girlfriend, she's on our team. Why should you get to be the ones to rescue her?

"Because, let's face it Lance," Scott said, smirking, "we _can_ save her, when was the last time you guys defeated Magneto?"

Lance cheeks burned with embarrassment. "Well, see if you can get to him without us," he said, and grabbed Pietro. He threw him in the jeep, and glared at Todd and Fred. They followed him into the jeep, and they took off.

"X-men, back in the jeep," Scott said. "We've got to follow them."

"Why?" Kurt asked. "They don't know where they're going anyway; Pietro never got the maps he needed."

"And with a car full of guys, you can guarantee they're not going to stop for directions," Rogue said.

"And there's probably not going to be a sign saying, 'Magneto's secret lair; 5 miles," Ray said.

"This is no time for jokes," Scott told them sternly, "we've got a GPS locator in the X-van, if we catch up to them, we can give them the maps they need."

"So, let's go," Jean said.

* * *

Somewhere else

_They kicked her out. One little fight and Scott had thrown her out. Yeah, she broke curfew to go out with Lance, and she called them all jerks, but that was no reason to kick her out. She barely had enough time to pack her stuff when Scott came into her room._

"_Where were you all night?" he demanded. "It's almost 2 in the morning."_

"_I was with Lance," Kitty said. "I told you I'd be late when I left."_

"_That was seven hours ago!" Scott said. "Kitty, if you can't follow the rules, you're not going to be allowed to stay."_

"_You can't kick me out," she said, "the professor's in charge, not you."_

"_Watch me," he smirked, and picked up some of her bags. He carried them down the stairs, threw open the door, and tossed them outside. "The professor's in Washington right now, he won't be back till Sunday, I'm in charge. Now get out."_

"_What about Logan, and Mr. McCoy?" Kitty asked. "You can't just kick me out, Scott. Where am I supposed to go?"_

"_Why don't you go live with your little boyfriend?" He sneered. "Obviously, you'd rather be with him than with us."_

"_You know what? That sounds like a great idea," Kitty said, picking up one of her bags. "I'm going to join the Brotherhood."_

"_Good riddance," Scott said. "In fact, I'll even call him so he can pick you up." He went inside, and she could hear him talking to Lance. "Lance, it's Scott, get over here and pick up your girlfriend, now."_

_There was a pause, and Scott said, "Because I'm sick of her sneaking out of here to see you. From now on, she's on your team, you can deal with her."_

_Another pause, "No, he's not, and if you call him Baldy one more time…"_

_Pause. "Yes, I'm serious, just get over here and pick her up before I put this place on Defcon 4, and it fry's her." He slammed the phone down, and, right in Kitty's face, slammed the door._

Another time

_Kitty had just started getting used to the staring people had given her, they all knew she had joined the Brotherhood, and they weren't happy._

_She was slammed into her locker, and when she looked up, Bobby was there, ready to punch her. But it wasn't just Bobby, Ray and Sam and Jubilee was there as well. Kurt was watching from down the hall. _

_Bobby punched her, knocking her to the ground, and Ray kicked her in the stomach. _

"_Did you think you could just leave us?" Bobby asked, pulling her up by her ponytail. _

"_What are you talking about?" Kitty asked._

"_Don't play stupid with us, Shadowcat," Ray said, "Scott told us that you walked out on the X-men. We're your teammates, did you think you could leave, just walk out on us?"_

"_Bobby, Ray, stop it! You guys don't know what you're talking about! I didn't leave willingly, Scott kicked me out!" Kitty screamed._

"_Sure," Sam said, "don't bother lying, Kitty, its over."_

"_There's no way Scott's going to let you back now," Bobby said._

"_Kurt," she called out, hoping he would stop the others. "You know I didn't want to leave, Scott kicked me out," but Kurt just turned away. _

"_So when you realize that living with those losers isn't working out, don't bother coming to us," Ray said, and they left._

_Kitty was confused; her friends weren't her friends anymore. Kurt, who was once her best friend, had left her to the mercy of her old teammates. The only ones she had now where the Brotherhood, and Magneto. Magneto was her leader now. She had no loyalty to Xavier anymore._

_The X-men weren't her teammates any more. _

Kitty opened her eyes, a swirl of confusion at first, but suddenly, she knew where she was, and why she was here.

She was waiting to destroy the X-men.

* * *

"You changed her memories so she'll kill the X-men?" Pyro was asking Magneto. "Boss, have you realized the serious flaws in this? I mean, besides the fact that no amount of brainwashing can make an X-men go against the team, this same idea was used on last weeks episode of 'Teen Titans'."

"How do you know?" Remy asked.

"There's some great material on that show," Pyro said. "Anyways, am I the only one who sees how crazy this is? Besides, her powers are defensive, she can't hurt anybody, she can just go through them. 'Ahh! She's put her arm through my chest.' Yeah, that strikes fear in my heart."

Remy burst out laughing. "Magneto, Remy's sorry, but if the Pyro can tell that your idea's a bust, you're in big trouble."

"You don't understand," Magneto insisted. "She can't defeat the X-men single handedly, she is merely a test. As we speak, the X-men are on their way here, coming to save her. But now she thinks that they've betrayed her-left her to us. Even if these false memories don't work again," he glared at Mastermind, "the X-men could never let her back on the team."

"What about Rogue? And Boom-boom?" Pyro asked. "They fought against the X-men, and they're on the team."

"Rogue was misled by Mystique, the X-men knew that, and, well, Tabitha isn't the most well-controlled child there is," Magneto said.

"Are you kidding?" Pyro asked. "I've met her; she makes your kid look like an angel."

"You don't think the Brotherhood would have told them?" Remy asked.

Magneto was fed up. "Just leave," he said. "I can take care of my ideas by myself."

Remy and Pyro left, Pyro grumbling about how Magneto got all his evil ideas from television, and that he could get much better evil plots. Magneto sighed; he wished he could get rid of John, but he was one of the only ones willing to work for him.

But if this experiment worked on Kitty, all that would change. The values of right and wrong would be eliminated, replaced by fury, much like what had happened to his daughter. She had become most powerful when she was angry. With Kitty's only memories being one's where the X-men had left her out, she would stop at nothing to defeat them. Xavier had spent countless hours working with her, training her, and preparing her for the life that she was going to lead. She was ready attack the team who had taught her to fight.

If half of his team would be like that, Magneto would be unstoppable.

**Ok, RR please! Hope you liked it!**


	9. The end

**A/N Yes! I have finished. Okay, normally, I'd thank each and every one of you people who review individually, but, I'm tired, so, thank you everyone! Here it is, the last chapter, hope you have as much fun reading it as I did writing it!**

Bobby was sulking in front of the TV. He knew there was a chance that he would be kicked off the main team for this, but he didn't care.

Well, he did, but not enough to go help. Yeah, the Professor had taught them to try and get along with _all_ mutants, bad or good, but still. _Kitty _had left them. _Kitty_ had joined Magneto. _Kitty_ was the one who had broken the rules.

But _he_ was the one who was going to get kicked off the team. Funny how the world works sometimes.

"There's got to be something I can do," he mused aloud to himself. "Some way to make sure I still have a spot on the team."

"You could still go and help," a voice said from the doorway. It was Storm, taking a break from Cerebro.

"What do you mean?" Bobby asked. "They've all left, it's too late. Besides, I don't understand why we're trying to rescue her anyway. She's not an X-man anymore."

"She may have said she left, but I think it was more to prove a point than to really leave," Storm said. "She doesn't belong with the Brotherhood."

"Why? Who gives you and the professor the right to decide? When Todd and Fred tried to join, you wouldn't let them, and when Tabby and Rogue went to the Brotherhood, you didn't go out and 'rescue' them. You waited for Rogue to come to you, why don't you do the same for Kitty? What makes you so special that you can decide who to save, and who not to?" Bobby asked. "What if I left for the Brotherhood, would you try and save me, or would you wait for me to decide to come back on my own?"

There was a laugh from the doorway, "Like the Brotherhood would ever let _you _in," Tabby said.

"Who asked you?" Bobby snarled.

"I'm just saying," Tabby said, walking toward the couch he was on, "you're too weird for the boys in the Brotherhood to ever want you."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Bobby asked, offended.

"That you try to be the teacher's pet and the class clown at the same time, the Brotherhood would never accept you. Which I guess is okay, because you would never accept one of them," Tabby said.

"I'm through listening to this," Bobby said, getting up.

"Just a moment, Bobby," the professor came into the room, "Jean's just called me, we need to get down there. They need our help."

"Do you want me to call the others?" Storm asked.

"No, that won't be necessary," the professor said, "Tabitha and Bobby should be enough. But if you could prepare the Blackbird for launch, I would appreciate it."

"What's going on, Professor?" Tabby asked as Storm left.

"I'm afraid that Magneto has used Mastermind to brainwash Kitty, and Jean suspects that some of the others might have false memories now too," The professor said.

"Is that why Kitty left?" Bobby asked.

"I'm sure there were actual reasons for her wanting to leave," Xavier said, "from what I've heard, she had every right to walk out. I may not approve of her decision, but I understand why she left," he gave a stern look to Bobby, which told him that the Professor knew all the things he did. It was one of the curses of living with a telepath for a teacher.

"Well," Tabitha said, grinning at the fact that Bobby was in trouble, "We better get out there, huh?"

* * *

Magneto's base, half an hour earlier

Entering Magneto's lair wasn't as hard as Ray thought it would be. It was in the side a cliff by the beach, and all it took was Avalanche's and Cyclops powers to bring it down.

Amazing how one small girl could make two of the greatest enemies work together. They had even stopped bickering for a time.

"Come on, Earthquake, I can't do all this by myself, try pulling your weight."

"Maybe if you get out of my face, I'll aim at the mountain instead of you," Lance retorted.

Okay, maybe not completely, but they weren't ready to kill each other, which is always a good thing when they were working together.

There was a crash, and part of the cliff fell.

"Okay team, Magneto had to have heard that, so we have to make this quick," Cyclops said. Logan and Lance gave each other a look; there were three 'leaders'- why did Scott get to be the one who made the calls?

Ray was the last one in, out of all the X-men, he was the only one not trained to be a real one, and the Brotherhood had been trained by Magneto and Mystique, he was the only one not sure of what was going to happen.

He looked around the hallways as they walked, the walls and the ceiling were made of metal, and there were only a few florescent lights that gave an eerie glow, and it gave him the creeps. He heard a noise behind him, and quickly turned, but there was nothing there. He tried to calm himself down; he'd never make it on the team if he freaked out every time they went to fight Magneto. But there was something weird going on here, he knew it.

He turned to the front again, only to find that the others had disappeared. He heard a noise behind him, and turned around again, only to see a strange man, one he had never seen before, and that was the last he remembered.

* * *

Amara was not happy about any of this. First, she had to cancel her shopping plans with Jubilee, and then they had to come all the way out to who knew where just to rescue a person who willingly left. Unlike Bobby, Amara didn't care about the glory of being an X-men, she was just as content being on the secondary team. But she figured that she could get more training if she was on the real team, and accepted the position when Xavier asked her. She just wanted control of her powers, and if having to save a rogue X-men helped her, then so be it.

She looked around for Ray, but it seemed that some of them had split up, Rogue, Logan, Fred and Lance had disappeared along with Ray. Scott must have ordered for them to split up or something. She really should start to pay attention to him.

Suddenly, they were out of the corridor, into a bright room, and Kitty was there, watching them.

"Kitty! You're alright!" Kurt exclaimed happily. She glared at him, and phased through the floor. She came up right behind Kurt, and did some sort of move to his neck, Amara couldn't really see, and Kurt fell to the floor in a heap.

"Kitty, what the heck are you doing?" Jean asked. Kitty did not respond, but phased through the floor again. Before she could see where Kitty would come up, Amara felt a hand around her mouth, and she was pulled through a doorway before anyone could notice.

* * *

Logan wasn't exactly sure what they were expecting to find. He knew that her memories had been changed- they all knew, but they weren't sure what it was changed to. He wasn't even sure where she would be... strapped to a table, evil scientists all around? Her locked in a prison cell, starved and barely alive? Her being forced to watch toothpaste commercials?

What he wasn't expecting was to come to a room, and find her beating the tar out of her own teammates. Kurt, Scott, and Todd were on the floor, and Kitty was ready to knock Pietro out.

His claws instantly came out, but, remembering it was his little 'half-pint' he was fighting, he quickly pulled them back in. Of course, without his claws, he wasn't sure exactly how to stop her without hurting her.

He looked around the room, and noticed that Amara was missing, and Ray was just coming through the other door.

Right before Kitty could go after him, Pietro ran out of the room. As Logan went up to Kitty, ready to fight her with his fists, he called over his shoulder to Ray, "where were you, on a bathroom break? Give me some help over here!"

When his back was turned, Wolverine felt electrocuted, and knew that for some reason, Ray had attacked him.

"What are you doing Bezerker?" he asked, as Bezerker continued to use his powers on him, slowly bringing him to his knees. Logan knew that it would only be a few seconds until his healing factor kicked in, but for the time being, he could only clench his teeth against the pain.

He jerked his head to one side, and noticed Jean running out of the room His first thought was that she was deserting them, but he caught sight of the cell phone in her hand. She was calling for help.

"Good idea, Jeanie," Logan said, as he felt his healing factor start to work. His claws unsheathed, and he pounced on Ray, knocking him to the floor. He had no problem using his claws on Ray, and had them almost touching his neck, when he felt something behind him.

It was Kitty, and she had just stuck something in his back. Wolverine tried to focus on what it was, but he started blacking out.

* * *

Lance watched in horror as his girlfriend attacked her team. Even though Pietro said that she might not be able to take the changes to her memory, she seemed to be doing fine. In fact, she seemed to be fighting better than what he had ever seen her do. Mastermind had probably added in some training sessions in her new memories.

But that didn't matter, what was important was getting her to remember without hurting her. And she was coming for Lance, Ray right behind her.

"Kitty, I don't want to hurt you," he said, backing away from her.

"Why are you fighting on _their_ side?" she asked, one of the first things she had said since they found her.

"What do you mean _their_ side?" Lance said, trying to see if she could get her to remember anything. "Kitty, Mastermind changed your memories, you've got to believe me."

She looked at him in disgust. "I would have thought someone hand picked by Mystique would be a bit smarter than that. You know that they're not my teammates, they never will be again."

He looked at her closely, she looked hurt. He didn't know what her new memories were, but they were definitely something bad.

"What happened, Kitty?" Lance asked, trying to calm her down. But before she could say anything, the floor around him started to melt around him. He looked behind him as his feet melted into the floor. It was Magma, looking just as serious as Berzerker and Kitty.

"What the heck is going on?" he yelled as he made an earthquake, and freed himself.

Amara and Ray weren't saying anything, but Ray shocked Scott, who was starting to get up, and Scott fell to the ground again.

Lance glanced over at Wolverine; he was already starting to wake up. His eyes opened, and he dodged a flow of lava that Magma had sent at him.

"Rocky," he said to Lance, the only other mutant that wasn't controlled or knocked out, "get Kitty, try and get her to remember." He turned towards Ray, "I'm going to… help Ray along here." His claws popped out.

"What am I supposed to say to her?" Lance asked, as Logan tackled Ray.

"I'm a bit busy here kid," Logan said, "just do whatever you did to make you guys remember."

"Do whatever you did to make you remember,' Lance quoted silently. "What the heck does that mean?"

"It means you need to get your butt in gear, and do something," Wolverine snarled, as he and Ray rolled on the floor. Ray was doing his best to shock Logan; Logan was doing his best to avoid killing the kid - no matter how much he really wanted to.

"Kitty," Lance said, as they circled around each other, waiting for the moment to strike. "You've got to remember the truth, Mastermind messed with your head, and he's making you think you're on Magneto's side.

Kitty eyed him suspiciously. "The only thing I remember is that they kicked me out. They kicked me out because of you."

"That's not true, _you_ left _them_. Mastermind just changed it so you think they kicked you out," Lance said.

"If that's even true, why did I leave?" Kitty asked, and Lance couldn't tell if she really wanted to know, or if she was just trying to distract him. The question is- from what?

It became apparent as Magma jumped on his back, and knocked him to the floor. She turned him over, and held a ball of flame in front of his face.

"Kitty, I'm telling the truth! You're not on Magneto's team; you're an X-men!" Lance screamed, trying to get Amara to power down.

"I _was _an X-man, Lance," Kitty said, crouching down, so she was just inches away from his face. "But I was thrown out, for you." She kissed him on the cheek, and got up. She almost made it out the door when…

"As much as I love the whole romance thing, I think it's time we break this up." There was a great flash of light, and suddenly, Amara was off of Lance, and Tabby was helping him up. Bobby was in the corner, trying to block Kitty's way, but she phased through him and any barriers he created.

"Shadowcat," Logan said, struggling to get Ray off of him without hurting him, "you can't walk away from a fight. I thought I taught you better than that." Storm knocked Ray off with a bolt of lightning, and he got up.

"You're not the boss of me anymore!" Kitty screamed, and pulled out a gun from a pocket in her outfit, and shot him in the chest.

"Kitty, what the heck was that for?" Bobby asked in horror, as Storm tried in vain to catch Logan, who was collapsing.

"_Kitty, you know that you don't belong here, you belong with us" _a voice inside her head said, "_If you didn't, you wouldn't shoot Wolverine, who you know can heal himself." _Logan was already starting to heal; the bullet was coming out of his chest. "_You could have shot anyone, but you shot the only one that can't be hurt." _

Kitty looked at the professor, who was coming through the door with Jean. Rogue, who had missed a turn, and hadn't shown up yet, rushed to Logan, and then at Lance, who was getting up, and then at Bobby, who was coming towards her.

"No!" She shouted, "You're wrong!" And to prove her point, she shot the gun two more times, once at Lance in the shoulder, and then at Bobby in his leg. They both screamed in pain, and fell to the floor.

"Kitty, you don't have to do this," the professor said, no longer trying to reach her telepathically. "Mastermind has altered your memories; you are an X-men! Look," he mentally forced past the memory blocks Mastermind put in, and tried to show Kitty her true memories.

She was playing baseball, and Bobby iced up the bat, shopping with Jean and Amara, being a Bayville Siren. All these memories resurfaced, and Kitty stared blankly at the ceiling, remembering everything that was good about being an X-men.

Kurt and Jaime playing video games until all hours of the night, Rogue smiling secretly whenever she got off the phone with Remy.

"Kitty, you must remember, you have to stop this," Jean said, as she used her powers to grab the gun away from her. Kitty was so confused by what was going on, she didn't even try and stop her

"Kitty, I know the others have done some stupid things, but you need to think past that," Rogue said, slowly walking towards her, feeling safer now that her gun was gone.

The professor kept bringing memories up. She was at the Sadie Hawkins dance. She was at the pool. She was at the beach. She was with Lance. She was with Kurt.

It all overwhelmed her. She fell to her knees, clutching her head, crying.

"Stop it!" she screamed. But the memories kept coming. Just when it felt like she couldn't take it anymore, they stopped.

She looked up. Lance and Bobby were bleeding freely from their gun wounds, and Bobby was glaring furiously at her. Most of the team was on the ground, unconscious.

"Oh, gosh, what have I done?" she whispered, and collapsed in a new set of tears.

The professor came over, but she didn't look up when she heard his mechanical chair coming at her. She flinched when he put his hand on her shoulder; it just reminded her of what she did.

"Kitty, it's okay, it wasn't your fault," the professor said, in his most fatherly voice. "You're still welcome to come rejoin the X-men."

Even as he said it, he could hear Bobby say, _in your dreams_, in his mind. It was true; it would be difficult to except her after everything that happened - even though most of it wasn't her fault.

"There was a lot that happened today that wasn't your fault at all, that you didn't have a choice in," Ororo said. "You do not have to feel like we're throwing you out, your welcome at the mansion at any time."

"But for now," the professor said, "I think we need to get Bobby and Lance to the infirmary."

"And we have to get out of here, before Magneto and his lackey's get down here," Logan said.

Kitty still was crying, but she had slowed down. She would never be accepted back into the X-men now, and she knew it.

After the others had been revived, they headed for the X-jet and X-van. Logan looked everywhere for a sign of Magneto.

"Wonder where he is," he muttered, before getting into the car with the others.

* * *

Up in a room, watching through a camera, Gambit was wondering why they weren't going down as well.

"This experiment was a failure, there is no need to pursue them anymore, we never beat them anyway," Magneto glared at the others. "But don't worry; someday soon, the Brotherhood will be loyal to me again."

**A/N Oh yeah, did I mention the sequel? Yeah, I didn't want to end it completely, but I wanted to kind of get away from the X-men, so I'm kind of starting over again. I don't know what it will be called, but it's going to be a bit longer, and more Lance/Kitty focused, because I couldn't fit that in here, so don't worry. I've got big plans for this one.**

**Don't forget to review! Thanks! **


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